Method and apparatus for processing mail to obtain image data of contents

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus for processing documents is provided. Documents having a selected characteristic are placed into a first area, whereas documents not having the selected characteristic are placed into a second area. A sensor in the first area detects the presence of documents in the first area. The documents are conveyed to a scanner that scans the documents to obtain information regarding the documents. The processing of the documents is controlled by a processor. A document is electronically tagged as having the selected characteristic and processed accordingly in response to the detection of the document in the first area and in response to whether the document arrived at the scanner during a pre-determined time frame.

PRIORITY CLAIM

This application is a continuation-in-part application of U.S. patentapplication Ser. Nos. 10/931,529 and 10/931,530, both filed on Aug. 31,2004, each of which is a divisional application of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 10/862,021, filed Jun. 4, 2004. This applicationalso claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No.60/476,532, filed Jun. 7, 2003 and U.S. Provisional Application No.60/757,929 filed Jan. 11, 2006. Each of the foregoing applications ishereby incorporated by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to the field of processing documents toobtain image data for the documents. More specifically, the presentinvention relates to a workstation operable to process documents bydropping the contents onto a conveyor that conveys the documents to ascanner. The present invention also relates to processing mail, such asenvelopes having contents, wherein opened envelopes are presented to anoperator so the operator can extract the contents from the envelopes.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Automated and semi-automated machines have been employed for processingdocuments such as bulk mail. Due to the large quantity of mail receivedby many companies, there has long been a need for efficient sorting ofincoming mail.

Further, in many instances it is desirable to obtain image data of thedocuments received in the mail. However, often the documents are foldedand/or the documents received in a batch of mail are random sizes. Inorder to scan these documents, it is typically necessary to spendconsiderable time to manually prepare the documents so that thedocuments can be automatically fed into a scanner. This processing isinefficient, thereby increasing the overall cost of processing the mailand obtaining image data of the documents in the mail.

SUMMARY OF THE DESCRIPTION

Accordingly, a method and apparatus are provided for processing mail toefficiently handle the mail and obtain image data of the documents.Preferably, the present invention provides an apparatus that readilyprocesses a variety of document types to obtain image data for thedocuments. For instance, preferably the apparatus accepts various sizeddocuments and transports the documents to an imaging device, such as ascanner, to obtain image data. Preferably, the apparatus also allows theprocessing of folded or creased documents, and particularly groups offolded or stacked documents.

A method and apparatus are also provided that allow processing mixedmail with minimal or no preparation of the mail. A document or packet ofdocuments can simply be dropped onto a conveyor, which conveys thedocument or documents to a feeder that serially feeds the documentsdownstream for further processing. One type of further processing uses ascanner. The feeder separates and serially feeds the documents to thescanner, which scans the documents to obtain image data for eachdocument.

According to another aspect, a method and apparatus is provided forefficiently processing documents according to various information thatcan be identified for the documents on a job, batch, transaction, ordocument basis. Further, an interface is provided that allows theoperator to intervene to supplement or amend the scanned informationwith additional information that may be tagged to the documents.

Yet another aspect relates to a feeder that is operable to accommodatemail with little or no pre-processing. The feeder is operable to receivepackets of envelopes conveyed in a generally horizontal orientation,separate the documents from one another and serially feed the documents.The feeder includes a feed belt disposed generally parallel to atransport path along which the packet of documents are conveyed. Thefeeder also includes an angled feed arm that projects upwardly andoutwardly over the transport path, forming an acute angle with theincoming transport path.

A method and apparatus are also provided for processing documents havingdetachable portions. For instance, a document processing apparatuscomprising a document feeder, a scanner and an image processor areprovided. The feeder is operable to feed a document having first andsecond portions connected by a perforation. The scanner is operable toscan the document to obtain a document image comprising image data forthe first and second portions. The image processor is operable toanalyze the image data to identify a characteristic of the document, anddetermine the location of the perforation based on the characteristic.In addition, the image processor may be configured to crop the documentimage based on the location of the perforation to remove the secondportion of the document from the document image.

A method is also provided for processing documents having a firstportion and a second detachable portion attached to the first portion bya perforation. The document is scanned to obtain a document imagecomprising image data for the first and second portions. The image datais analyzed to identify a characteristic of the document, and thelocation of the perforation is determined based on the characteristic.The document may then be cropped based on the location of theperforation, thereby removing the second portion of the document fromthe document image.

Further a method is provided for processing a batch of documentscomprising a plurality of transactions of payment documents for aplurality of payees, wherein the transactions are payments from a payorto a payee comprising at least one check. The payment documents arescanned to obtain image data for the documents, and the payor accountinformation is identified for the checks. The image data is analyzed toidentify the payee for the transactions and to identify the paymentamount for the checks in the transactions. Electronic payment recordsfor the checks are prepared, wherein each payment record for one of thechecks comprises the payor account information, the payment amount andthe image data for the check. The electronic payment records are thensubmitted for clearing the checks on either a check by check basis or atransaction by transaction basis.

A method and apparatus are also provided to track documents to improvethe efficiency of identifying a characteristic of a particular document.Specifically, an apparatus is provided, which includes a conveyor forconveying documents, which includes a first portion for receivingdocuments having a first characteristic and a second portion forreceiving documents that do not have the first characteristic. Theapparatus further includes a scanner for receiving documents from theconveyor. The scanner is operable to scan the documents to obtain imagedata for the documents. First and second sensors are used to track thedocuments. The first sensor is operable to detect the presence ofdocuments received on the first portion of the conveyor; the secondsensor is spaced apart from the first sensor and is operable to detectthe presence of documents as the conveyor conveys the documents from thefirst portion of the conveyor to the scanner. A processor analyzes theprogress of the documents in response to signals received from thesensors. Specifically, the processor analyzed the time that a signal isreceived from the first sensor regarding a first document and the timethat a signal is received from the second sensor regarding the firstdocument. In response to the analysis of the progress of the firstdocument, the first document is selectively electronically taggedindicating the presence of a characteristic.

In addition, an apparatus is provided, which includes a conveyoroperable to receive and convey documents and first and second sensorspositioned along the conveyor. A scanner positioned adjacent theconveyor receives documents conveyed by the conveyor and scans thedocuments to obtain image data for the document. The apparatus furtherincludes a processor operable to control the processing of the documentsin response to signals received from the first and second sensors. Theprocessor is operable to determine the time that signals are receivedfrom the first and second sensors, and selectively electronically tagdocuments in response to a signal from the first sensor indicating thatthe first sensor sensed the presence of the document and a signal fromthe second sensor indicating that the second sensor sensed a portion ofthe document within a select period of time.

A method for processing documents is also provided, which includesdropping a first document onto a first area, and conveying the firstdocument from the first area to a scanner. At the scanner the firstdocument is scanned to obtain image data for the first document. Asecond document is dropped onto a second area to identify the seconddocument with a characteristic. The second document is then conveyedfrom the second area to the scanner, which scans the second document toobtain image data for the second document. The document is tracked alonga document path between the second area and the scanner to verify thatthe document arriving at the scanner corresponds to the document droppedin the second area.

In addition, a method for processing documents in provided, whichincludes dropping a document in a first area and sensing the presence ofthe document in the first area with a first sensor. The time the firstsensor detects an edge of the document is recorded and the document isconveyed away from the first area and past a second sensor. The time thesecond sensor detects an edge of the document is also recorded and thedocument is scanned to determine a characteristic of the document. Inaddition, the document is selectively electronically tagged as having apre-determined characteristic in response to signals from the firstsensor indicating the presence of the document in the first area and thetime of recording the second sensor detecting the edge of the document.The document is then processed in response to whether the document iselectronically tagged.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing summary as well as the following description will bebetter understood when read in conjunction with the figures in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a mail processing apparatus.

FIG. 2 is a fragmentary perspective view of a feeder section of theapparatus illustrated in FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a fragmentary plan view of the drop feeder and imaging stationsections of the apparatus illustrated in FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is a fragmentary cross-sectional view of the drop feeder andimaging station sections illustrated in FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 is an enlarged fragmentary view of the drop feeder and imagingstation sections illustrated in FIG. 4.

FIG. 6 is a schematic side view of the drop feeder and imaging stationsections illustrated in FIG. 3.

FIG. 7 is a schematic plan view of the drop feeder and imaging stationsections illustrated in FIG. 3.

FIG. 8 is a fragmentary perspective of the drop feeder and imagingstation sections illustrated in FIG. 3, illustrating the imaging sectionin an opened configuration.

FIG. 9 is an enlarged fragmentary side view of an extraction station ofthe apparatus illustrated in FIG. 1.

FIG. 10 is a schematic side view of an uncreasing element of the imagingstation illustrated in FIG. 3.

FIG. 11 is a screen shot of an operator display of the apparatusillustrated in FIG. 1, illustrating a view sorted according totransaction.

FIG. 12 is a screen shot of an operator display of the apparatusillustrated in FIG. 1, illustrating a view sorted according to documentsequence.

FIG. 13 is a screen shot of an operator display of the apparatusillustrated in FIG. 1, illustrating a view sorted according to bin.

FIG. 14 is a screen shot of an operator display of the apparatusillustrated in FIG. 1, illustrating a view sorted according totransaction.

FIG. 15 is a fragmentary perspective view of the drop feeder illustratedin FIG. 3.

FIG. 16 is an enlarged fragmentary perspective view of the feeder ofFIG. 2.

FIG. 17 is an illustration of a check document having detachableportions.

FIG. 18A is an illustration of the check document in FIG. 17,illustrating scan areas for the document in alternative orientations.

FIG. 18B is an illustration of the check document similar to thedocument in FIG. 17, illustrating scan areas for the document inalternative orientations.

FIG. 18C is an illustration of a check document, overlying the scanareas illustrated in FIGS. 18A and 18B.

FIG. 19 is a plan view of a portion of the apparatus illustrated in FIG.1, illustrating features of a document tracking system.

FIG. 20 is a flow chart illustrating the steps of a document trackingmethod.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Referring now to the figures in general and to FIG. 1 in particular, asemi-automated mail processing workstation 10 is illustrated. Theworkstation processes mail by severing one or more edges of eachenvelope in a stack of mail, and presenting the edge-severed envelopesone at the time to an operator who removes the documents from theenvelope by hand. The operator can then drop the extracted documentsindividually or in stacks onto a conveyor that conveys the documents toan imaging station. The imaging station separates the documents,serially feeding the documents to an imager that obtains image data forthe documents. The documents are then sorted into one or more outputbins.

Brief Overview

A general overview of the flow of mail is as follows. Initially, a stackof envelopes containing documents, referred to as a job, is placed intoan input bin. A feeder 30 removes the lead envelope 5 from the front ofthe stack and transfers the envelope to a feed tray.

The envelope 5 in the feed tray is edge-justified by a plurality ofopposing rollers. From the feed tray, the envelope 5 drops into a sidecutter, which severs the side edge of the envelope if desired. From theside cutter, the envelope drops into a shuttle. The shuttle movesvertically to adjust the height of the top edge of the envelope toaccount for variations in the height of the different envelopes in thejob. The shuttle moves vertically until the height of the top edge ofthe envelope 5 is within an acceptable range for advancing the envelopeinto a top cutter. The envelope is then transported to the top cutter,which severs the top edge of the envelope 5.

From the top cutter the envelope is advanced to an extraction station70. The extraction station 70 pulls apart the front and back faces ofthe envelope to present the contents of the envelope for removal. Anoperator then manually removes the contents from the envelope 5.

After the operator removes the documents from the envelope 5, theapparatus 10 automatically advances the envelope to a verifier 90. Theverifier 90 verifies that all of the documents were removed from theenvelope before the envelope is discarded. From the verifier 90 theenvelope is conveyed into a waste container. Alternatively, the envelope5 may be manually removed and imaged at the imaging station 130.

Returning to the flow of the documents, after the documents areextracted at the extraction station, the operator unfolds as needed anddrops or places the extracted documents onto a drop conveyor 100 thattransports the documents toward an imaging station 130. An imaging entryfeeder 110 receives the documents from the drop conveyor 100 andcontrols the feeding of the documents into the imaging station 130. Theimage entry feeder 110 is configured to receive and feed documents ofvarious sizes and condition. For instance, frequently documents arefolded in an envelope. When the documents are extracted and opened up,the documents are creased or folded so that they do not lie flat. Thefeeder 110 is preferably configured to receive such creased or foldeddocuments and serially feed the folded documents into the imagingstation 130 with minimal manual preparation by the operator.

The imaging station 130 includes an imager 150 that obtains image datafor each document as the document is conveyed past the device. Forinstance, preferably the imager 150 is a scanner that obtains gray scaleor color image data representing an image of each document. The scannerscans each document at a plurality of points as the document is conveyedpast the scanner. The information for each document is stored in a datafile for each document so that the image data can be accessed at a latertime.

From the imaging device, preferably an imaging transport 170 conveys thedocuments to a sorting station 200 that sorts the documents into aplurality of output bins 205. The documents can be sorted in a varietyof ways. For instance, the documents can be sorted based on documentinformation obtained from the image data received at the imaging station130. Alternatively, the operator may indicate information regarding adocument before it is scanned, so that the document is sorted accordingto the information indicated by the operator. Yet another alternative isthat the documents may be stacked into one or more bins simply based onthe order in which the documents are processed.

Since many of the documents may be creased, ordinarily the documentswill not readily stack in a compact manner so that relatively fewercreased documents can be discharged into a bin before the bin is full.Accordingly, preferably, the documents are processed by an uncreaser180, which is an element that reduces the creasing or folds in thedocuments. The uncreaser flattens or straightens the documents so thatthey lay more flatly in the output bins so that more documents can bedischarged into a bin before the bin is full.

A controller controls the processing of the mail in response to signalsreceived from various sensors at various locations of the workstation 10and in response to parameters set for the job by the operator. Forinstance, in response to an indication from a sensor in the feed traythat there is no envelope in the feed tray, the controller sends asignal to the feeder 30 indicating that an envelope should be fed fromthe input bin to the feed tray. Similarly, in response to an indicationfrom a sensor in the shuttle that there is no envelope in the shuttle,the controller sends a signal to the feed tray indicating that anenvelope should be dropped from the feed tray into the shuttle.

The workstation is divided into numerous functionally separate sections,which include: a feeding station 30, a side cutting station, a topcutting station, the extraction station 70, the verification station 90,the imaging station 110, and the sorting station 200. In most cases, thecontroller controls the operation of the various sections independentlyfrom each other. This independence allows several operations to proceedsimultaneously or asynchronously as required. As a result, a slow downin one section does not necessarily slow down all of the other sections.

In addition, preferably the operation of the apparatus from the dropconveyor through the sorting station are controlled separately from theoperation of the other stations. Further, preferably, an operatorinterface is provided so that the operator can intervene to control theprocessing of the documents. Specifically, preferably a touch screendisplay 20 is provided that allows the operator to enter variousinformation regarding the documents.

Configuration of the Work Station

As can be seen in FIG. 1, preferably the work station 10 is configuredso that an operator working at the workstation has ready access to eachworking area. A seating area 15 at the front of the apparatus iscentrally located, and the different stations are disposed around theseating area with the paper path flowing in a manner that the documentsremain within easy access of the operator at the seating area.

Specifically, preferably, the feeding station 30 is disposed adjacentthe right side, however, the feeding station can be located on the leftside if desired. Preferably, the feeding station is within arm's reachof the operator from the seating area 15. Accordingly, preferably thedistance from the seating area to the feeding station is no longer thanone half the overall width of the work station, so that the operator canreadily access the feeding station 30 from the seating area. From thefeeding station 30, the mail pieces are fed along a document path thatextends across the workstation along the width of the work station,intermediate the front and rear edges of the work station to theextraction station 70. Preferably, the extraction station issubstantially aligned with the seating area 15 relative to the right andleft edges of the work station so that the operator can readily graspthe mail at the extractor during operation. For instance, preferably theextraction station is generally centered between the right and leftedges of the workstation, and preferably the center of the seating areais also generally centered between the right and left edges of the workstation. In other words, preferably the seating area is disposed adistance from the left hand edge of the work station that issubstantially similar to the distance that the extraction station isdisposed from the right hand edge of the work station.

The drop conveyor 100 is preferably located adjacent the front edge ofthe work station, and is disposed between the extraction station 70 andthe seating area 15 so that the operator reaches over a portion of thedrop conveyor to grasp documents at the extraction station. Morespecifically, preferably a portion of the drop conveyor 100 is disposedadjacent the seating area 15 at the front edge of the work station. Inthis way, the operator can readily view, unfold and drop documents fromthe extraction station 70 onto the drop conveyor 100 when pulling thedocuments back toward himself/herself.

Preferably, the imaging station is disposed adjacent the front edge ofthe work station on the side of the work station opposite the side onwhich the feeding station 30 is disposed. Accordingly, the drop conveyor100 conveys the dropped documents away from adjacent the seating area15, along a path that is generally parallel to the front edge of thework station. Preferably, the imaging station 130 is disposed a distancefrom the seating area that is less than half the width of the workstation so that the operator may readily access documents at the imagingstation. In addition, preferably the document path from the imagingstation 130 to the output bins 205 returns toward the seating area sothat the output bins are spaced from the seating area a distance that isless than half the width of the work station. In this way, the outputbins 205 are disposed conveniently near the operator at the seatingarea, so that the operator can readily remove processed documents fromthe output bins while the operator is at the seating area.

Details of the Stations

Feeding and Edge Cutting Stations

The feeding station 30 includes an input bin and a feeder. The input binis configured to receive a stack of mail and convey it to the feeder.The feeder comprises a pivoting arm with a suction cup that grasps anenvelope from the stack of mail and transports the piece to a sidecutting station. In this way, the feeder 35 serially feeds mail from thestack of mail.

The side cutting station includes a plurality of drive rollers andopposing idler rollers. As the envelope passes between the rollers arotary knife severs the side edge of the envelope. The severed edgedrops down a scrap chute into a waste container.

From the side cutting station, the envelopes are top edge-justified sothat the top edge remains at a consistent height. The envelopes may bejustified by a pair of rollers to drive the envelopes upwardly against astop at a predetermined height. However, such a roller justifier istypically limited to justifying envelopes that are similar in height. Ifthere is too much variation among the envelopes in a batch of mail thejustifier may not be able to properly justify the envelopes. Forinstance, if an envelope in a batch is unusually high, the top edge ofthe envelope may be positioned too high as it enters the justifier sothat it causes a jam. If the envelope is unusually low, the top edge ofthe envelope may not engage the justifier rollers so that the envelopeis not justified.

Accordingly, in order to accommodate a variety of envelopes, preferablythe apparatus includes a shuttle that moves up and down to position thetop edge of each envelope at approximately the proper height. Theenvelopes then enter the top-edge justifier to justify the top edge ofthe envelopes. The shuttle is a bin that receives each envelope andmoves up or down as necessary to adjust the height of the top edge ofeach envelope as necessary depending upon the height of each envelope.

After the envelopes are top edge-justified, the envelopes are conveyedto a top cutting station that severs the top edge of the envelopes. Inthis way, the top and leading edge of each envelope is cut by the twocutting stations. Optionally, the side cutting station can be configuredso that both sides of each envelope is severed. Yet another option is toeliminate or disable the side cutters so that only the top edge of theenvelopes is opened.

Extraction Station

The extraction station 70 operates to pull apart the faces of theedge-severed envelopes and present the contents so that an operator caneasily remove the documents. After the operator removes the contents, asensor sends a signal to the controller that the contents have beenextracted. The empty envelope is then transported to the verificationstation 90 and another envelope is fed to the extraction station 70.

Referring now to FIG. 9, the extraction station 70 includes a pair ofopposing vacuum suction cups 74 mounted on two pivotal extractor arms72. The suction cups 74 are connected to a vacuum pump. In FIG. 9, theextractor arms 72 are shown in two alternative positions. In the firstposition, the extractor arms are pivoted away from one another. In thesecond position the extractor arms are pivoted toward one another.

As shown in FIG. 1 the extraction station 70 is positioned in front ofthe seating area 15 intermediate the front and rear edges of the workstation. Before an envelope enters the extraction station, the extractorarms 72 are pivoted away from one another. When the envelope enters theextractor, the arms 72 pivot toward one another and negative pressure issupplied to the suction cups so that the suction cups engage the facesof the envelope. The arms then pivot away from one another pulling apartthe faces of the envelope, which have been severed along the top edgeand preferably the side edge (see FIG. 9). The operator can then removethe contents of the envelope.

The document transport pinches the envelope between idler rollers and abelt. Therefore, when the extractor arms 72 pull apart the faces of theenvelope, the envelope and its contents remain pinched between the idlerrollers and the belt. To remove the contents, the operator must pull thecontents with enough force to overcome the friction between the envelopeand the contents caused by the pinching action of the extractiontransport. In addition, this friction is maintained until the bottomedge of the contents is pulled past the pinch point. The extractionstation 70 is preferably configured to operate in three different modesfor determining whether the contents have been extracted from theenvelope: removal mode, differential mode, and content activation mode.

The simplest mode is removal mode. An optical sensor 75 is locatedadjacent the extractor arms 72 in front of the extractor arms. When theoperator removes the contents from the envelope the contents pass overthe sensor 75 and the sensor detects the presence of the contents. Asignal is then sent to the controller indicating that the contents wereremoved. The controller then controls the document transport to advancethe envelope from the extraction station 70 to the verifier 90. Inaddition, an envelope is advanced to the extraction station. Theenvelope is advanced from the extraction station as long as some of thecontents from the envelope are passed over the sensor 75, even if someof the contents remain in the envelope.

In the differential mode, an optical sensor 76 measures the thickness ofthe envelope immediately after the extractor arms pull apart the facesof the envelope so that the thickness of the envelope is measured beforethe operator extracts the contents. The optical sensor 76 continuouslydetects the thickness of the envelope and its contents, and compares thethickness with the initial thickness reading. If the difference inthickness is greater than a predetermined limit, a signal is sent to thecontroller indicating that the contents were removed from the envelope.The controller then advances the envelope to the verifier 90 andadvances an envelope to the extractor. Preferably, the workstationincludes a second optical sensor similar to the first sensor 76. Thesecond sensor monitors the thickness of the envelope in the same way asthe first sensor 76. When two sensors are employed, the measurementsfrom the two sensors are averaged and compared against the predeterminedlimit to determine whether the contents were extracted.

If the operator removes all of the contents from the envelope, but thedifferential thickness is not greater than the predetermined limit, theenvelope will not be advanced. In such instances the operator canadvance the empty envelope by pressing an override button (not shown).Pressing the button operates to convey the empty envelope to theverifier 90 and convey an envelope to the extractor.

The content activation mode is like the differential mode in that thesensor 76 continuously detects the thickness of the envelope and itscontents. However, in the content activation mode, the thicknessdetected by the sensor 76 is compared to a thickness standard based onthe thickness of an envelope and a variation tolerance. If the sensor 76detects a thickness that is less than the thickness standard, a signalis sent to the controller indicating that the contents were removed fromthe envelope. The envelope is then advanced to the verifier 90 and anenvelope is conveyed to the extraction station 70. Preferably, twosensors 76 are employed, both of which monitor the thickness of theenvelope as described above. When two sensors are employed, themeasurements from the two sensors are averaged and the average iscompared against the thickness standard.

If the operator removes the contents from the envelope, but thethickness detected by the sensor is not below the thickness standard theenvelope does not advance. In such instances, the operator can advancethe empty envelope by pressing the override button. In response topressing the button, the empty envelope is conveyed to the verifier 90and an envelope is conveyed to the extraction station 70.

The thickness standard used in the content activation mode can bedetermined in several ways. For example, the thickness standard can bebased on the first envelope in a job. However, preferably, the thicknessstandard is calculated based on the average thickness of the envelopesprocessed in a job. In other words, the thickness standard iscontinuously updated based on an average of the thickness of the emptyenvelopes processed in a job. The thickness standard is then calculatedbased on the thickness of the empty envelope(s) and a predeterminedvariation tolerance.

Verification Station

The verification station 90 checks the thickness of each envelope toensure that all of the contents have been removed from the envelopebefore the envelope is discarded into the waste container 25. Theverifier 90 can use an optical sensor to check the thickness of theenvelope, similar to the optical sensor or sensors used by theextraction station 70. However, the verifier preferably checks thethickness of the envelope by measuring the distance between the outersurfaces of the envelope faces. To measure this distance, the verifier90 includes a rotary variable inductive transducer (RVIT).

To determine a zero thickness reference value, an empty envelope is fedto the verifier, and the sensor takes a measurement corresponding to thethickness of the empty envelope. The status of subsequent envelopes aredetermined based on the zero thickness reference value.

Alternatively, the reference value used by the verifier 90 to check theenvelopes is calculated based on the average thickness of the previousenvelopes and a variation tolerance, similar to the method describedabove for determining a thickness standard for the extraction step inthe content activation mode. However, in the present instance, thecalculation of the reference value differs from the calculation of thestandard used in the extraction step. When calculating the referencevalue for the verifier 90, if the measured thickness of an emptyenvelope is greater than the current reference value, the thicknessmeasurement for the envelope is not factored into the running average.For example, when calculating the thickness reference for the 100thenvelope in a job, if the thickness of the 90th empty envelope wasthicker than the reference value based on the previous sixteenenvelopes, the thickness of the 90th envelope would not be included inthe average used to calculate the reference value for the 100thenvelope.

If the verifier 90 measures a thickness that is greater than thereference value, then a signal is sent to the controller indicating thatthe envelope in the verifier 90 is not empty. An indicator light (notshown) is lit indicating to the operator that the envelope at theverifier should be removed and checked to ensure that all of thecontents were removed. A verifier sensor adjacent the RVIT sensordetects the presence of the envelope in the verifier 90. Until theoperator removes the envelope from the verifier, the document transportwill not advance any envelopes, regardless of whether the envelope inthe extraction station 70 is empty.

If the verifier 90 detects a thickness that is less than the referencevalue, a signal is sent to the controller indicating that the envelopeat the verifier is empty. The controller then activates the documenttransport to advance the envelope out of the extractor and into a trashchute that discards the envelope into the waste container beneath theverifier 90.

The operation of the feeding station 30, side and top cutting stations40, 50 and extraction station 70 are similar to the operation of theapparatus described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,230,471, which is owned by OpexCorporation, who is also the assignee of the present patent application.U.S. Pat. No. 6,230,471 is hereby incorporated herein by reference. Inaddition, alternative feeding and cutting stations could be incorporatedinto the present apparatus. For instance, pending U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 10/348,358 describes a mail processing apparatushaving an alternative feeding station and edge cutting area that couldbe incorporated into the present apparatus in place of the feeding andedge cutting stations described above. Application Ser. No. 10/348,358is hereby incorporated herein by reference.

The following description discusses the processing and imaging ofdocuments that have been extracted from opened envelopes in the mannerdiscussed above. However, in certain applications, the apparatus isoperable to process documents without using the extraction features ofthe apparatus. For instance, the apparatus may be used to process abatch of documents that have been previously extracted, such asdocuments that are rejected by high speed automated processing devices.For such documents it is advantageous to use the feeding and scanningfeatures as discussed below. Similarly, a batch of pre-slit mail may beprocessed, whereby the operator manually opens the slit envelopes andthen processes the documents as discussed further below. Accordingly,unless otherwise noted below, the following discussion of the documentimaging process is applicable to a variety of applications in which abatch of documents needs to be imaged, without regard to how thedocuments are obtained (i.e. the documents are provided in a stack asopposed to documents that must be extracted from envelopes). Features ofthe present invention are not limited to applications in which theenvelope opening and extraction features of the apparatus are used.

Drop Conveyor

Referring to FIGS. 1-8 and 15, the drop conveyor 100 is configured toreceive documents extracted from the envelopes. The conveyor 100 isdisposed along the front edge of the work station 10, such that theconveyor is operable to convey documents adjacent to and parallel to thefront edge of the work station. In addition, the conveyor preferablyconveys the dropped documents toward the left hand side of theworkstation. More specifically, preferably the drop conveyor is locatedso it has a drop zone centered on the seating area, and aligned with theextraction station.

Preferably the conveyor 100 is configured to readily receive documentsthat the operator manually removes from an envelope at the extractor.More specifically, the conveyor is configured to receive documents thatare simply dropped onto the conveyor and to convey the dropped documentsto the imaging station 130. In this way, the operator can readilyextract and, if necessary, unfold documents and simply drop a documentor packet of documents onto the conveyor with minimal preprocessing ofthe documents to prepare the documents for scanning.

Although the operator preferably drops the documents onto the drop zoneof the conveyor, the drop zone is a substantial area that is much largerthan the documents. Accordingly, the operator does not need to beprecise with the location and orientation that the document are droppedonto on the conveyor. However, preferably the operator drops thedocuments so that the documents are front face up on the conveyor.Nonetheless, since preferably both sides of the documents are scanned atthe imaging station, if the documents are front face down, the apparatuscan analyze the documents to determine which face is the front face.

To this end, preferably the conveyor 100 is a roller bed conveyor. Thebed of rollers provides a generally horizontal surface onto whichdocuments can be dropped. The roller bed comprises a plurality ofhorizontally disposed cylindrical rollers 102 driven by a belt 103engaging the bottom of the rollers, which in turn is driven by a motorcontrolled by the system controller. The rollers 102 may be parallel toeach other and perpendicular to the direction of travel so that thedocuments move straight along the roller bed 100. However, preferably,the rollers are skewed so that the rollers drive the documents forwardlyalong the roller bed and laterally toward a justification rail 105. Inthis way, the skewed rollers 102 drive the documents against the rail105 to edge-align or justify an edge of the documents against the rail.

Each of the rollers 102 comprise a plurality of grooves sized to receiveO-rings. The O-rings have a higher coefficient of friction than thesurface of the rollers, to provide an area of increased friction betweenthe roller bed and the documents, thereby improving the justification ofthe documents. As mentioned previously, the document rests on therollers. Therefore, as the rollers 102 rotate, the rollers move thedocuments forwardly.

If a single document or a packet of folded documents is placed onto theconveyor, the creases in the documents may tend to make portions of thedocuments project upwardly or downwardly, which could cause problemsfeeding the documents as they enter the imaging station. Accordingly,preferably the justification rail 105 is configured as shown in FIG. 4.Specifically, preferably the rail 105 is formed of a low frictionmaterial, such as smooth aluminum or low friction plastic, and is formedinto a generally U-shaped channel. In this way, the rail forms an upperlip 106 and a lower lip 107. The upper lip 106 prevents documents fromsliding up and over the rail as the documents are displaced forwardlyand toward the rail. The lower lip prevents documents from being forceddownwardly between the rail and the edge of the rollers as the documentsare displaced forwardly and toward the rail.

Although, the drop conveyor 100 has been described as a roller bedconveyor, alternative types of conveyors can be utilized as the dropconveyor. For instance, the drop conveyor may comprise a horizontalconveyor belt. If a conveyor belt is used, preferably the belt is skewedtoward the rail 105 so that the belt justifies the documents against therail. Alternatively, rather than a single conveyor belt, the dropconveyor may comprises a plurality of smaller conveyor belts onto whichthe documents may be dropped.

Another alternative drop conveyor comprises a plurality of wheels thatproject upwardly from a base. In such a configuration, the conveyorincludes a sufficient number of conveyor wheels that are spaced apartfrom one another so that the tops of the wheels form a bearing surfaceto support the documents. In this way, the documents are dropped ontothe wheels, and the wheels are arranged so that when the wheels turn,the wheels drive the documents forwardly. Additionally, preferably thewheels are angled toward the rail 105 so that the wheels justify thedocuments against the rail as the wheels drive the documents forwardly.

Although the conveyor 100 is referred to as a horizontal conveyor,preferably the drop conveyor is angled downwardly so that gravity urgesthe documents toward the guide rail 105. This can be seen most clearlyin FIG. 4. Preferably the conveyor 100 is angled at approximately fivedegrees, however, the angle may be higher, and in fact, the angle of theconveyor may be increased to a point that the conveyor is verticalrather than horizontal. In addition, preferably the imaging station andsorting station are angled downwardly similarly to the drop conveyor.

Image Entry Feeder

Referring to FIGS. 1-8, 15 and 16, from the drop conveyor 100, thedocuments enter an image entry feeder 110 at the end of the conveyor. Asthe documents are conveyed to the imager, the documents are generallyhorizontally disposed, riding on top of the drop conveyor 100 and areedge-aligned against the justification rail 105.

On the conveyor, the documents are only held down by gravity, and theupper lip of the justification rail depending on how the document iscreased. Since the documents may be creased, gravity is generally notsufficient to flatten down the documents so that the documents can befed to the imaging station. Therefore, the image entry feeder 110preferably provides at least two function: (1) positively engaging thedocuments to pull or push the documents downwardly; and (2) controllingthe feeding of the documents to the imaging station.

As shown in FIG. 6-7, preferably, the entry feeder comprises one or moreparallel feedbelts disposed substantially horizontal and parallel to thebase plate of the feeder. Although the entry feeder 110 may comprise asingle wide belt, preferably the entry feeder comprises a plurality ofparallel belts that are progressively longer so that the documents areprogressively nipped over a wider area as the documents enter thefeeder, as further discussed below.

Preferably, the feeder belt comprises a first belt 112 that operates asthe lead feed belt. The lead belt may be longer than the other belts inthe feeder so that the lead belt projects outwardly toward the dropconveyor further than the remaining feeder belts. In addition,preferably, the lead belt is positioned adjacent the rail 105 so thatthe lead belt is closest to the rail.

An idler roller 113 below the base plate is biased upwardly intoengagement with the end of the lead feeder belt 112 to form an entrynip. This nip is the initial nip that serves to control the documents asthey enter the feeder 110. Since the nip is close to the rail 105, theinitial control point is adjacent the rail, which is the justificationedge for the documents. The lead belt 112 pulls the documents forwardly,so that the documents engage the secondary feed belts 116. At thispoint, the documents are engaged by both the lead belt and the secondarybelts, so that the area of engagement with the documents, (and thereforecontrol over the document) is wider.

In addition, preferably the entry feeder further comprises an arm 114that projects forwardly and upwardly from the leading end of the leadfeed belt 112, parallel to the lead belt. The forward arm 114 comprisesa rotatable belt that forms an acute angle relative to the drop conveyor100. The arm operates to push down any documents that may have portionssticking upwardly, as discussed below.

Referring to FIGS. 2, 6-7 a folded document is illustrated on the dropconveyor. The document is exemplary of a document that was folded intothree sections (i.e. tri-folded) and placed in an envelope. When thedocument was extracted from the envelope and unfolded, the documentretained creases that cause the leading and trailing edges of thedocument to bend upwardly (or downwardly if the documents are flippedover relative to FIG. 2, 6-7). Similarly, the document could be atri-folded document in which the crease lines are parallel to thedirection of flow of the conveyor, rather than perpendicular as shown inFIGS. 2, 6-7.

A document having a leading edge that is creased so that the leadingedge is folded upwardly will tend to fold over as it is fed into thefeed nip between the lead feed belt 112 and the idler roller 113. If thedocument folds over, it will not image properly. The operator could flipthe document over so that the leading edge is not folded up, which couldlimit the potential problems associated with folding the document.However, it is desirable to configure the entry feeder so that it canaccommodate the documents regardless of the orientation of the documentsand the folds in the documents.

Accordingly, preferably, the entry feeder 110 includes the angled feeder114, which rotates clockwise from the perspective of FIG. 6. The angledfeeder arm, or knock-down arm is a feed belt that operates to drive thedocuments downwardly if the documents are creased and sticking upwardly.The position of the angled feeder arm tends to push the folded portionof the document down to flatten the document without folding over thedocument. More specifically, the knock-down feeder projects forwardlyand upwardly from the horizontal lead feed belt 112 so that the forwardedge of the knock-down belt is disposed higher than the lead belt, andangled downwardly to where the knockdown arm 114 is about the samedistance from the drop conveyor 100 as the lead feed belt 112. In thisway, the leading edge of the knock-down feeder arm 114 extends upwardlyabove the height of most all folded documents, so that the feederflattens the documents without folding the documents over. At the sametime, the drop conveyor and the knock-down feeder arm 114 urge thedocuments toward the lead feed belt.

Once a document is nipped between the lead arm 112 and the idler roller113, the feeder drives the document forwardly. The shorter feed belts114 then engage the document, so that the document is nipped (i.e.controlled) over a wider portion of the document. Additionally, theportion of the document nipped by the feed belts 112, 114 is held downflat. In other words, as the document enters the feeder, the document isprogressively flattened.

The nip formed under the short feed belts 114 is formed between the feedbelts and a retard 120. The retard is formed of a high friction materialso that the frictional force between a document and the retard isgreater than the frictional force between two documents. The retard canbe formed in any of a number of configurations. However, in the presentinstance, preferably the retard comprises a pad having a plurality ofspaced apart ridges 121 that are disposed between the belts that formthe feeder, as shown in FIG. 5. In this way, the documents engage theretard between the belts.

The entry feeder 110 operates to feed the documents to the imagingstation through a feed slot that is formed between the base plate 108and an entry guide 132. Preferably the entry guide 132 is spaced fromthe base plate approximately ¼″. Since the documents are nipped by thefeeder, the portion of the document at or adjacent the feeder willreadily fit into the feed slot. However, the end of the document remotefrom the feeder may still stick up from creases or folds. For thisreason, the leading edge of the guide is angled rearwardly (i.e. in thedirection of the paper path, as shown in FIG. 7 In addition, preferablythe leading edge of the entry guide is curved upwardly to provide aguide for forcing the leading edge of the document downward if thedocument has a portion sticking upwardly from folds or creases.

The foregoing discussion described the feeding of a single piece fromthe conveyor to the feed slot down stream from the feeder 110. However,the feeder is also operable to receive and separate packets of documentsso that the documents are serially fed to the imaging station.

In order to accommodate packets of documents, preferably the lead feedbelt 112 is spaced from base plate approximately 3/16″. When feeding thedocuments from the packet, the bottom-most document in the pack may tendto buckle in the gap between the feed belt 112 and the base plate.Specifically, the packet of documents is nipped between the retard 120and the feeder 110, with the trailing end of the documents nippedbetween the lead belt 112 and the idler roller 113. When the second tolast document is being fed through the feeder, the trailing edge of thesecond to last document is advanced out of the nip between the idlerroller 113 and the lead belt 112 so that the last document in the stackis engaged by both the feed belt and the idler roller so that the nipdrives the rearward edge of the last document forwardly. However, aportion of the second to last document is still nipped between thefeeder and the retard, so that the last document is held back by theretard while the trailing end of the last document is driven forward,which can cause the last document to buckle between the baseplate andthe bottom of the lead belt 112. Accordingly, preferably, an elongatedthin flexible plastic finger 117 extends through the lead nip to supportthe document in the nip. Preferably the finger 117 is long enough toextend to the retard 120. By supporting the document, the fingerprevents the document from buckling from the forward feed force when theretard is holding the piece back.

When a packet of two or more documents is received in the conveyor, thefeeder is designed to control the documents so that they progress intothe imaging station one at the time. If more than one document is fed atthe time then one or more of the documents will not be imaged. Thefeeding of more than one document at the time is commonly referred to asa double feed.

A double feed is caused when two documents enter the imager togetherbecause the frictional force between the two documents tends to pull thesecond document along with the first document when the first document isfed to the imager. The retard 120 is provided to hold back the seconddocument (as well as any other documents that may be in the packet), sothat only the first document in the packet is fed to the imager.

Although it is typically desirable to utilize the retard so that packetsof documents can be separated from one another, in certain instances itmay be desirable to feed the documents without the retard. Accordingly,the device includes a pivotable retard control knob 119 that raises andlowers the retard. In a first position (which is shown in FIG. 5), theretard is raised so that the entry nip is formed between the feeder andthe retard. By turning the control knob 119, the retard is lowered sothat the top surface of the retard remains below the surface of the baseof the imaging section so that the retard does not project up intocontact with the documents. Instead, the entry nip is formed between thefeeder and the base plate of the feeder.

Imaging Station

From the entry feeder, the documents serially enter a nip formed betweena pair of crusher rollers 140. Although the entry feeder holds thedocuments down, it does not flatten the documents; it generally justholds an edge of the document flat against the base plate of the feeder.In contrast, the crusher attempts to flatten the creased documents.

The crusher rollers 140 are elongated cylindrical aluminum rollers 142having a smooth surface. A plurality of elastomeric gripping rings 144are formed around the circumference of the roller 142, and spaced apartfrom one another. Preferably, a first gripping ring is positioned at theend of the roller 144 closest to the entry feeder 110, and a secondgripping ring is positioned on the roller a couple inches away. Morespecifically, preferably the second gripping ring is spaced inwardlyless than the width of the feeder 110. In addition, preferably a thirdgripping ring is positioned adjacent the opposite end of the roller. Thefirst and second gripping rings 144 provide nips that drive the paperfrom the entry feeder to the imager 150. The third gripping rings arepositioned so that they are not in the paper path (i.e. the thirdgripping rings do not engage the documents. Instead, the third grippingrings provide spacing to maintain the rollers parallel with a constantgap.

Preferably, the first two gripping rings 144 on the rollers 142 arepositioned so that both rollers engage a single fold for documents thatare tri-folded with the fold lines disposed parallel to the paper path(i.e. the fold line would be perpendicular to the fold line on thedocument 8 in FIG. 2). In this way, the gripping rings engage theedge-justified third of the tri-folded document, while the rest of thedocument can slide across the width of the crusher roller since theremaining width of the crusher roller in the paper path is aluminum. Inthis way, the crusher roller flattens the documents without buckling thedocuments.

As the documents are processed through the imaging station 130 andthrough the imaging transport 170 and the sorting station 200, thedocuments should be properly spaced apart to prevent jammings to ensurea properly scanned image of each document, and to allow proper gating ofthe documents during subsequent processing. If the operator separateseach document in a transaction and drops the documents serially onto thedrop conveyor, the operator has provided the gap between the documents.However, if the operator drops a packet of documents onto the conveyor,the documents need to be separated in a way that provides proper gaps.

The gaps can be provided in one of at least two manners. First, theimaging entry feeder 110 can control the feeding of the documents toprovide gaps. For instance, after the feeder 110 feeds the firstdocument from the packet, the feeder may stop or slow down for apre-determined time period before feeding the next document in thepacket. This delay will create a gap between the documents.Alternatively, the gaps may be provided by running the feeder 110 at aslower speed then the transport path through the imaging station. Thisdifference in speed will create a gap between the documents.

As can be seen in FIG. 2, a plurality of feeder exit sensors 135 aredisposed in the feeder between the entry feeder 110 and the crusherroller 140. The feeder exit sensors detect the leading edge of eachdocument to determine whether the document is skewed relative to thecrusher roller (which is parallel to the imager). The feeder exitsensors 135 are preferably a plurality of optical sensors aligned withone another along a line that is parallel with the imager 150. Further,preferably, the first sensor is positioned adjacent the front edge ofthe work station, and preferably the second feeder exit sensor is spacedapart from the first feeder exit sensor a short distance so that thefeeder exit sensors can detect the skew of relatively narrow documents.Further, a third sensor is aligned with the first two sensors and spacedfurther away (i.e. preferably at least 3-6 inches) away from the secondsensor. The central controller receives signals from the feeder exitsensors. If the documents are slightly skewed, the documents maycontinue through for further processing. However, if the document isoverly skewed, the central controller electronically tags the documentfor rejection so that the document is transported to a rejection binwithout being imaged. Alternatively, if the document is extremelyskewed, it may not pass through the imaging station and/or sortingstation without jamming. Accordingly, the central controller stops theoperation of the apparatus and provides an indicator (such as a warninglight or a notice on the control screen) that the document needs to beremoved from the imaging station.

After passing the feeder exit sensors 135 and the crusher roller 140,the document passes through a thickness detector 147 that measures thedocument at a plurality of points along the length of the document. Thethickness detector may be any of a variety of sensors, such as an LVDTsensor. However, preferably the thickness sensor is a Hall effectsensor.

The Hall effect sensor 147 includes a sensor board disposed adjacent amagnet that is mounted on a linkage that biases the magnet toward thesensor. The magnetic field created by the magnet is measured by thesensor board as a function of the distance between the magnet andsensor. The magnet and sensor are linked to a pair of rollers betweenwhich documents are pinched when the document enter the thicknessdetector 147. When an envelope enters the thickness detector 147, thearms are forced apart, thereby separating the magnet and the sensorboard accordingly, changing the magnetic field intensity. The thicknessdata is communicated with the system computer and is stored in a datafile associated with the document.

From the thickness detector 147, the document enters the imager 150.Preferably the imager comprises a pair of scanners for scanning bothsides of the document. Specifically, preferably the imager 150 includesa lower plate in which the lower scanner 150 is located, and an upperplate in which the upper scanner is located. The lower scanner 150 scansthe bottom face of the document, and the upper scanner scans the upperface of the document. As shown in FIG. 8 preferably the upper plate ispivotable upwardly away from the lower plate to allow access into theimaging station 130 in the event of a jam in the imaging station.

Although the scanners may be black and white or gray scale, preferably,the scanners 150 are color scanners. More specifically, preferably thescanners 150 are contact image sensor (CIS) modules formed of arrays ofphotodiodes that operate as scanning elements, and LED light sources.

The scanner 150 scans the documents in three light colors, preferablyred, green and blue. The scanner scans the documents and acquires datarepresenting the light intensity for each of the three colors atdiscrete points of each document. For each color, the light intensity ofeach point, or pixel, is represented by a number ranging from zero to255. The light intensity for each pixel is communicated to the computerand is stored in a data file. In addition, rather than being scanned incolor, the documents can be scanned in gray scale.

As the document passes between the scanners, the scanners scan the facesof the document to obtain image data representing a color image of thedocument faces. The image is communicated with the system computer andthe image data is stored in a data file associated with the document.

From the scanner, the document is conveyed to a MICR detector, whichattempts to read any MICR markings on the document. Specifically, MICRmarkings are printed in magnetizable ink. The MICR detector includes amagnet that exposes the document to a magnetic field. The MICR detectoralso includes a MICR reader that scans the document for magneticfluctuations indicative of MICR characters. If the apparatus detects thepresence of a MICR line, the MICR detector attempts to read the MICRline. The data representing the MICR information is then communicatedwith the system computer, which stores the MICR data in a data fileassociated with the document.

Acquisition and Processing of Image Data

When the image entry sensor detects the presence of a document, theimage entry sensor sends a signal to the system controller indicatingthe presence of a document. The system controller then sends a signal tothe scanners regarding the document and data about how the document isto be processed. For instance, the system controller sends a signal tothe scanning station indicating what type of document is being scannedand whether the default scanning parameters are to be modified for thedocument (e.g. the document is to be scanned on a darker setting).

The scanners scan the document to acquire image data. The systemcomputer receives the image data from the scanners and then stores thedata in memory. Once the image data is transferred to the systemcomputer, the image data is processed. Although the scanner preferablyscans the documents in color, preferably the image data is processed toprovide a gray scale image that can also be binarized, as discussedfurther below.

First, preferably the gray scale data is binarized to create a black andwhite representation of the document image. By binarizing the data, thedata for each pixel is converted from an eight bit gray scalerepresentation to a one bit black or white representation, whichsignificantly reduces the space that is required to store the imagedata. In addition, binarizing the image data operates to highlight thetextual portions of the image, which is advantageous for furtherprocessing of the image data.

To binarize an image, the gray scale data for each pixel of the image iscompared with a threshold. If the gray scale number for a pixel is abovethe threshold, the gray scale is converted to white. Conversely, if thegray scale number is below the threshold, the gray scale is converted toblack.

To account for variations among the different documents being processed,an adaptive threshold may be used so that the binarization threshold isvariable for each document. An adaptive threshold uses a differentthreshold for each particular document based upon a sampling of theimage data for the particular document. By using a threshold that isspecific to each particular document, the threshold for a document thathas a generally dark image will typically be different than thethreshold for a document having a generally light image. In this way,the resulting binarized image will more closely reflect the image of thedocument than if a set threshold is used for all of the documents.

In addition to binarizing the image data, the image data is filtered toreduce noise, which eliminates unnecessary background and stray marksfrom the document image. The noise filtering can be performed either inseries or in parallel with the binarization. To filter the data, theimaging computer examines the image data to detect any black pixel thatis surrounded by white pixels. If a black pixel is surrounded by whitepixels, the imaging computer converts the pixel from black to white.Similarly, if a pair of adjoining black pixels are surrounded by whitepixels, both pixels are converted from black to white.

After the image data is binarized and filtered, the imaging computerattempts to read information from the document. For instance, theimaging computer may attempt to read an OCR line if the document is aninvoice or the MICR line if the document is a check. The OCR line datais helpful for later processing because the OCR line for documents, suchas invoices, includes information about the customer's account and theamount of the invoice. During subsequent processing, it is helpful toknow the customer account number. In addition, it is helpful to haveother information about the document to process the document. Forinstance, it is helpful to know the invoice amount.

Based on data received from the system controller, the imaging computerknows what type of document is being scanned. Specifically, as discussedfurther below, the document type may be automatically determined foreach document based on information that is acquired for the documentduring processing (e.g. document length and thickness). In addition, asdiscussed further below, the operator may manually identify the documenttype by selecting the appropriate document type when the document isdropped onto the conveyor. If the image represents a payment stub, theimaging computer processes the image data for the document in order todetermine the document's OCR line, which typically appears at the bottomof payment stubs. The OCR line is a series of characters printed in auniform predefined typeface of predefined size. Commonly, the typefaceis a type referred to as OCR A, however, other types of typeface can beread, such as OCR B, E13B and others.

In addition, the imaging computer can function to process the image datato read the MICR line of checks so that the MICR line is read bothoptically and magnetically by the MICR character reader. As previouslydescribed, the MICR character reader magnetically reads the MICR line onchecks. However, the MICR character reader may be unable to read one ormore characters in a MICR line because of imperfections in the magneticcharacteristics of the MICR line ink. These magnetic imperfections,however, may not affect the imaging computer's ability to read the MICRline from the optical image data, so that a character that cannot beread magnetically may be readable optically. Therefore, if the MICRcharacter reader is unable to read a character in a MICR line, the dataobtained optically is used to supplement the data obtained from the MICRcharacter reader in an attempt to complete the MICR line data.

Alternatively, it may be desirable to use the imaging computer to verifythe results from the MICR character reader. By verifying the results,the possibility of checks being processed with improper MICR data isreduced. For this purpose, the MICR line data obtained optically can becompared with the MICR line data from the MICR character reader. Ifthere is any mismatch between the optically read MICR line and theresults from the MICR character reader the imaging computer indicatesthat the MICR line was not determined. The system controller then tagsthe document as having an undetermined MICR line and the document alongwith the remaining documents in the same transaction are directed to areject bin or sorted by the stacker accordingly.

After the OCR line or MICR line data for a document is extracted fromthe image data, the image data for the document is compressed using acompression algorithm, such as Group 4 fax compression commonly referredto as “CCITT Group 4.” The compressed image is combined with other datafor the document. For instance, the document type may be combined withthe data representing either the MICR line or the OCR line, along withdata from the system controller to form a data record for the document.The data from the system controller includes information from theenvelope from which the particular document was extracted, such as achange of address indication, the presence of a postnet barcode, and thepresence of a mark indicating a customer response. The data from thesystem controller may also include an indication of whether the MICRline and OCR line were completely determined during imaging.Accordingly, the data record for a document includes the image data (thecolor image data, the gray scale image data and/or the binarized data),the MICR or OCR line, an indication of whether the OCR or MICR line iscomplete, a barcode, and miscellaneous information obtained during theprocessing of the document, such as the length and/or thickness profileof the document, as well as customer response data in the form of achange of address, or a check mark in a response mark.

Alternatively, it is frequently desirable to store the color or grayscale images of the documents in the data records rather than thebinarized and filtered images. To store the color or gray scale images,a copy of the color or gray scale image data for each document isbinarized and filtered as described above so that the image computer candetermine the MICR or OCR line, and other information from the imagedata. The color image data is then compressed using data compression,such as JPEG, and the image data is combined with other information tocreate a data record as previously described for the binarized andfiltered images. The binarized and filtered image can then be discardedfrom the imaging computer's RAM.

In addition to the previously described functions, the apparatus isoperable to modify the image in any of several ways. For instance, theimage can be de-skewed, and the black border that frequently occursaround the scanned image can be removed during processing of the image.The image can also be rotated to correct the orientation of the image.More specifically, a document may be fed into the imaging station in animproper orientation, so that the orientation of the image does notreflect the correct orientation of the image. For instance, a documentmay be printed in what is commonly referred to as a landscapeorientation, in which each line of printing extends across the long sideof the page (i.e. the length), rather than across the short side of thepage (i.e. the width). If the short side of the page is fed into theimaging station, the image may be displayed in a normal upright portraitorientation, commonly referred to as a portrait orientation. In such aninstance, the printing on the image would appear to be rotated (e.g.rather than reading from left to right, the printing would read from topto bottom). By rotating the image 900 the image would appear correctly.

Whether an image needs to be rotated can be determined in one of severalways. For instance, the operator may intervene and input informationindicating that the image needs to be rotated, and how much.Alternatively, the imaging station can automatically determine whetherthe image should be rotated. In one application, the imaging station candetermine the correct image orientation based on the document type. Asdiscussed further below, the document type can be determinedautomatically based on various characteristics of the document (e.g.length, width, thickness profile, magnetic character position). Based onthe document type, the imaging station can automatically rotate theimage as necessary. For instance, checks are printed in a landscapeorientation. By determining the length, width and location of MICRcharacters on the document, the device may automatically determine thata document is a check. Since the document is a check, the imagingstation may rotate the image data as necessary so that the image dataappears in a landscape orientation.

As described above, the document type is determined automatically basedon characteristics of the document. However, as described further below,the document type can be determined manually or semi-automatically.Regardless of how the document type is determined, the image data may beautomatically rotated to correspond to the proper orientation for thedocument type. Further still, rather than being automatic, the imagerotation may be semi-automatic based on the document type. For instance,based on the document type, the system may determine that a documentshould be rotated, but the operator may be prompted to confirm whetherthe document should be rotated. Depending on the response (or possiblythe lack of a response) the image data may or may not be rotated.

As described above, the image is rotated based on document type. Incertain instances, it may be desirable to prevent the image from beingrotated based on the document type. Specifically, the system may beconfigured so that images of documents of a certain type are rotated, asnecessary, based on an assumed configuration for the document type. Ifthe operator recognizes that the image of a document should be orientedin a specific way, the operator may override the system to scan thedocument in a certain configuration. For example, if a document of type“A” is assumed to be landscape orientation, the system willautomatically rotate the image to be viewed in a landscape orientation.However, if the operator recognizes that a document of type “A” isactually in portrait orientation, the operator may press a buttonoverriding the rotation. In other words, the operator can manually forcethe system to recognize the document in a certain orientation, androtate the document or refrain from rotating the document asappropriate.

The image data can also be electronically stamped to identify audittrail information, such as the batch number, piece number, document-typeand/or the date the document was processed. To electronically tag thedocument images, the image data is modified so that the audit trailinformation is “printed” on the image file for the document. In thisway, the image data will show audit trail information as if theinformation was printed on the document before the document was imaged.

The audit trail information may be stamped onto the document image inone of several ways. For instance, the information may be stamped ontoeach document in a predefined area. Alternatively, a border may be addedaround the image data and the information may be electronically stampedin the border to ensure that the stamped information does not overlapand thereby alter the image data. In yet another alternative, the audittrail information is stamped onto the document so that each pixel thatmakes up the audit trail info is the exact opposite of the actual imagedata for the pixels where the information is being stamped. Forinstance, if the image is a binary image, and the information is to beprinted in an area that has both black and white pixels, every pixel ofthe audit trail that is to be stamped onto an area that is black will bestamped as white, while the pixels that are white will be stamped asblack. Although the above discussion of printing the audit trailinformation describes situations in which the image is binarized, theapparatus is also operable to stamp portions of the document image thatare color or gray scale. Specifically, the electronically stamping isperformed so each pixel comprising the electronic stamping is the grayscale or color number that best corresponds to the opposite lightintensity of the pixels that make up the area that is to be stampedover.

Preferably, the documents are sorted and maintained in groups referredto as batches, which are identified by a unique batch number. The imagedata for a batch of documents is organized and maintained into batchdata record files referred to as batch files. The batch files areorganized so that the organization of the images in a particular batchfile directly corresponds to the organization of the documents in thebatch.

A complete batch file includes a batch header and the data records foreach of the documents in the corresponding batch. The batch headerincludes information that is common to all of the documents in thebatch, such as the batch number, the date the documents were processed,and the number of documents in the batch. Once all of the records havebeen appended to a batch file, the batch file can be exported to animage file server in the form of a personal computer, PC, via anethernet connection.

Difficulties may arise when imaging the documents. For example, the MICRmodule 220 and the imaging computer may not be able to read the MICRline for a check or the OCR line for a payment stub. If such a problemarises, the image, along with the data that was ascertained from theimage may be exported to the respective batch file for the document andthe document may be sorted with the other documents in the batch. Inthis way, the document and the image data for the document are availablefor subsequent processing, at which time the missing information can bemanually read and entered into the data record for the document.Alternatively, the display may prompt the operator to examine thescanned image displayed on the screen and enter the missing information.Alternatively, if some information, such as the MICR line or OCR line isnot fully read for a document, the document along with the otherdocuments in the same transaction may be directed to a reject bin. Ifdocuments are directed to a reject bin, then the image computer discardsthe image data for the documents in the transaction.

Although the description has focused on the processing of checks andinvoices, the apparatus is not limited to imaging checks and documents.More specifically, the apparatus is operable to scan and process avariety of documents that may include a variety of information that maybe scanned and analyzed. For instance, the imaging station is configuredto accommodate documents at least as large as 8½×14. In addition, theimage data exported to the data file may include more data than just theimage file for the entire document. For instance, portions of thedocuments can also be included in the data file. For instance, for acheck, an enlarged view of the courtesy box on a check can be includedin the data file. Further, the portion of an image in which a bar codeis located can be separated out as a file and included in the data file.The portions of the scanned images that are attached to the data file isnot limited to a single portion. Preferably, up to ten different imagedata sets can be included in the image data file. In this way, a varietyof image portions can be stored in the data file together with the imagedata for the entire image, if desired. Additionally, a variety ofinformation can be stored in the data file with the image data, such asthe length and/or height of the document, the thickness profile, theMICR line etc.

In addition, in certain instances it may be desirable to feed a batchticket before the batch of documents are fed. The batch ticket includesa variety of information specific to the batch of document. Forinstance, the batch ticket may identify the batch number and the datethat the images were processed.

Imaging Transport

As shown in Fig.8, the imaging transport 170 extends between the imagingstation 130 and the sorting station 200. Preferably the imagingtransport is formed of two halves, and the upper half 172 is pivotableaway from the lower half 174 to provide access to the transport path toremove any paper jam in the transport, or perform service on theinterior element.

As shown in FIG. 8, the document path between the imaging station 130and the sorting station 200 is preferably not a straight horizontalpath. Instead, preferably, the imaging transport 170 turns upwardly andcurves backwardly toward the seating area 15. Specifically, the imagingtransport 170 conveys the document away from the scanners 150 in agenerally horizontal direction parallel to the base plate of the lowerscanner plate. The transport 170 then curves upwardly, thereby turningthe document upwardly along a generally vertical path. The transport 170then curves back generally horizontally toward the seating area. Inother words, the transport essentially provides a U-turn, turning fromthe imaging station back toward the operator. The reverse leg of theU-turn also extends somewhat upwardly at an angle relative to thescanner base plate. At the end of the reverse leg of the U-turn, thetransport 170 curves back upwardly, thereby turning the documentupwardly along a generally vertical path to the sorting station 200.

Between the imaging station 130 and the sorting station 200, preferablyan optional uncreasing station and a printer are disposed along thetransport path.

Referring to FIG. 10, a schematic view of the uncreaser 180 isillustrated. As discussed previously, it is desirable to remove thecreases from folded documents so that the documents can be moreefficiently stacked in the output bins 205. The uncreasing station 180is a guide having a sharp edge that the documents pass over as thedocuments turn around the U-turn.

More specifically, the transport path includes a pair of guides thatdirect the documents upwardly. The guide on the outside is a generallysmoothly curved guide 182. The guide 184 on the inside of the turnincludes an edge. For example, comparing the outside guide to the insideguide, the outside guide is a smoothly curved metal track, whereas theinside track includes two generally flat or straight legs formed at anangle to one another. The intersection of the two straight tracks formsan edge that operates as a sharp edge.

Preferably the documents are pulled tightly against the sharp edge asthe documents are conveyed across the sharp edge. To do so, preferablythe documents are tensioned by increasing the transport speed on thedownstream side of the sharp edge. Specifically, a nip is formeddownstream from the sharp edge, and the transport speed from the nipforward is higher than the transport speed upstream from the uncreaser.In this way, when the document enters the nip, the higher speed of thetransport pulls on the document, which tensions the document as it ispulled over the sharp edge. Pulling the documents over the sharp edgeremoves or reduces the creases in the documents.

Although the uncreasing device has been described as a guide having asharp edge, various other types of uncreasing elements can be employed.For instance, the sharp edge can be mounted on a solenoid adjacent thedocument path through the transport 170. The solenoid can be controlledso that it displaces the sharp edge into the paper path so that thepaper is pulled over the sharp edge when the solenoid is actuated. Thesolenoid can then be de-energized to retract the sharp edge out of thepaper path on selected documents or on selected portions of documents(i.e. if only the second half of a document needed to be uncreased, thesolenoid could be timed to be actuated to displace the sharp edge intothe path when the second half of the document passed by). Yet anotheralternative uncreaser is a heater. The heater includes a pair of rollersforming a nip that the documents pass through. One of the rollers isheated to an elevated temperature sufficient to reduce creases in thedocuments.

Additionally, the apparatus may include a second uncreaser to uncreasethe opposite side of the document. Specifically, the second uncreasermay be configured similarly to the first uncreaser except that thesecond uncreaser may be formed by the outside guide, rather than theinside guide as described above.

Although the uncreaser has been described as being located between theMICR reader and the printer, it may be desirable to locate the uncreaserin a different location. For example, the uncreaser may be located priorto either Lhe scanners 150 or before the MICR reader. Further still, theuncreaser may be located downstream from the printer if desired.

In addition, preferably a printer is disposed along the transport 170 sothat the printer can print markings on the documents as they areconveyed to the sorting station 200.

After the documents are imaged, the transport conveys the documents to aprinter module 190 which is controlled by the imaging computer. Theprinter module 190 includes at least one ink jet printer. The printers190 are disposed behind covers in the imaging transport. Morespecifically, a first printer is preferably disposed behind a plate inthe upper portion 172 and preferably the second printer is disposedbehind a plate in the lower portion 174. In response to signals from thecomputer, the printer module 190 prints audit trail data onto eachdocument. The audit trail information printed on a document includesdata particular to the document, such as the document type for eachdocument, the batch number for the document, the document number, thetransaction number for the transaction of which the document is amember, and the date on which the document was processed. The audittrail information can be used to subsequently locate a particulardocument within a stack of documents. Generally, it is desirable to onlyprint information on the back face of each document. However, theprinter module may also include a second ink jet printer to printadditional information on the front face of the documents. If a secondprinter is used, the imaging computer controls the printers toselectively print on either or both sides of a document.

Sorting Station

The sorting station 200 is disposed at the end of the imaging transport170, and the sorting station includes a plurality of gates 204 operableto sort the documents into one of a plurality of bins 205. Preferably,the documents are processed so that the documents are discharged intothe bins 205 face down, so that the stack of documents in the outputbins is in the proper order so that the stack does not need to bere-ordered after the documents are processed.

As shown in FIG. 8, the sorting station includes a plurality of gatesthat are operable to direct the documents to the appropriate bin 205.The sorting can be based on a number of criteria. For instance, thedocuments can be sorted according to information determined from theimage data. One such example relates to forms that have a change ofaddress check box (i.e. the consumer checks the box if the consumer'saddress changes). The image data can be analyzed to determine whether achange of address is indicated. If so, the sorter 200 can sort suchdocuments to a particular bin 205 to keep such documents together.Similarly, the documents can be sorted based on other criteria, such asthe thickness profile of the document, which can indicate what type ofdocument the document is, or the documents can be sorted based on thelength of the documents, which can be measured by one of the sensors atthe entrance to the imaging station. In addition, the documents can besorted based on a combination of the information that is determined fora document (i.e. thickness profile, length, MICR reading, OCR reading,barcode reading or an identifying mark). Further, documents that areelectronically tagged for outsorting or rejection can be sorted to aparticular bin.

In addition to identifying the pieces automatically, the operator maymanually identify the document type before the document is scanned. Thepiece is then sorted based on the indicated document type. For instance,there are five bins in the sorting station, and there may be five ormore different document types defined for a particular batch ofdocuments. Each type of document is sorted to a different one of thebins 205, unless there are more document types than bins, in whichinstance, more than one document type will be sorted to some or all ofthe bins. Each document type is represented by a different button on thetouch screen 12. When the operator places a document onto the conveyor100, the operator presses the button that identifies the document type,and the document is sorted accordingly. Alternatively, when the operatorpushes the button to identify the document type, the apparatus mayassume that all subsequent documents are the same type of document untilthe operator presses a different button. In this way, the operator neednot manually identify each document if a batch of documents containsgroups of the same type of document.

Further still, the manual indication described above can be combinedwith the automatic determination described above. Specifically, theapparatus may automatically identify the document type unless theoperator manually overrides the system by identifying the document typefor a document when it is placed onto the conveyor.

In the discussion above, the documents were sorted according to varioussort criteria based on information about each document. However, in someapplications it may be desirable to simply sort the documents in theorder in which the documents are processed. In such an application thedocuments are sorted to the first bin 205 until the bin is full. Thedocuments are then directed to the second bin until it is full, and/oruntil either all of the bins are full or all of the documents areprocessed. This process of switching from one bin to the next when thebin is full is commonly referred to as waterfalling, and the bins areoperable to waterfall in various sorting applications.

As discussed previously, the documents may have creases that frequentlyaffect the processing of the documents. At the sorting station 200, thecreases can affect the stacking of the documents in the bins.Specfically, if the documents are creased along lines perpendicular tothe document path, the documents will tends to fold underneaththemselves as they are discharged into the output bins 205. Accordingly,preferably the sorting station includes corrugation rollers to corrugatethe documents so that the documents are rigid enough to dischargeproperly so that the documents stack properly in the bins.

Preferably, the corrugation rollers are configured as follows. Therollers are positioned on two parallel shafts, with one of the shaftsbeing biased toward the other shaft. Opposing discharge rollers arelocated on the outer ends of the shafts. The discharge rollers providedischarge nips that the documents pass through. Intermediate thedischarge roller are three corrugation rollers that are larger than thedischarge rollers, preferably by at least approximately 25%. Two of thecorrugation rollers are positioned on the first shaft, with the thirdroller being positioned on the second shaft at an axial location betweenthe two corrugation rollers on the first shaft. In this way, the threecorrugation roller project into the paper path creating a deepcorrugation that provides sufficient rigidity to properly discharge andefficiently stack the documents.

Bypass

As discussed above, the documents leaving the scanners 152 are conveyedalong the imaging transport, which extends upwardly to the output bins.Alternatively the sorting bins can be bypassed by directing thedocuments through a bypass that has an opening across from the imagingstation and under the imaging transport 170. The documents can beconveyed horizontally from the imaging station 130 and discharged to anoutput bin or area 166 on the backside on the imaging station (see FIG.3). The bypass can be used in several applications to improve theflexibility of the apparatus.

For instance, if a batch of documents simply needs to be imaged withoutsorting the documents after processing, then the sorting station isunnecessary. The documents can be dropped onto the conveyor 100 and thenfed to the imaging station 130. From the imaging station the documentsare conveyed straight back and discharged though the bypass 165 into theoutput area 166. In this way the scanned documents are simply stacked ina single stack in the output area.

The bypass also allows for thick documents to be scanned. Specifically,documents that are thicker than twice the thickness of paper may tend tojam in the imager transport after the documents are imaged. However, thedocuments will not typically jam if they are discharged out the bypass.Accordingly, thick documents can either be processed together so thatall of the documents in the batch are scanned and then directed out thebypass 165, or optionally, the thick documents can be a defined documenttype that can be analyzed automatically based on the output from thethickness detector 147. If the thickness detector 147 detects a documentthat is greater than a predetermined limit, the document is directed tothe bypass 165. Alternatively, the operator may be able to identify thedocument as a thick document when the document is dropped onto theconveyor 100. The document is then directed to the bypass 165 afterbeing imaged. (There is also a maximum thickness for thick documents. Ifthe thickness is greater than the maximum thickness, the document is toothick to process, even through the bypass.) Yet another use of thebypass 165 relates to disposing of envelopes. As discussed furtherbelow, opened envelopes may serve as an indicator of the beginning orend of a transaction. Typically, it is not necessary to retain thedocument and it would be a waste of space in the sort bins 205 to fillthem with the envelopes.

Accordingly, when using opened envelopes as transactional markers,preferably the envelopes are discarded through the bypass 165, while thedocuments are scanned and then sorted into the sorting bins 205. Theenvelope can be identified as an envelope in one of several ways. First,the operator can manually identify the envelope as an envelope. Second,and more preferably, the apparatus identifies the envelope as anenvelope based on the thickness profile detected by the thickness sensor147. If the thickness profile for a document correlates to an envelope,then the apparatus assumes that the item is an envelope and the envelopeis directed to the bypass and discharged to the discharge area. For thisreason, when processing envelopes with the documents, preferably a wastecontainer is provided at the discharge area so that the envelopes can beconveyed directly into the trash.

In the previous discussion, it is assumed that it is not desired to keepthe envelope after processing. In many instances, since the envelope ismerely a transaction marker, there is no need to retain the image of theenvelopes, so that the envelope images are also discarded. However, incertain instances it may be desirable to retain the envelope image eventhough the actual envelope is discarded.

In yet another application, the bypass 165 is used to accommodateenvelopes that have contents inside. The function of this application issimilar to the processing of thick documents described above. In such anapplication the envelopes are scanned to obtain an image of the frontand rear faces of the envelope. The envelope is then discharged out thebypass 165, where the envelopes are stacked.

In still another application, the bypass is used to accommodate stacksof documents that are processed together so that only the top documentis scanned. The stack of envelopes is then directed through the bypass.One application of this feature is useful in processing certain types ofreturned mail in which the recipient's address has changed and the postoffice will no longer forward the mail. Such mail may be returned withcertain information about the recipient obscured (such as therecipient's account number) and the new address printed by the postoffice. Presumably, one of the documents in the envelope, such as thefirst document, will have the recipient's account number. Since thedocuments in the envelope are returned documents, there is probably noreason to image all of the documents. However, it would be desirable toimage the envelope (showing the new address) and one of the documents(showing the customer account information). Accordingly, the operatormay input information specifying that the documents are to be processedwithout separating the documents. The retard controller 119 is turned sothat the retard is disengaged. The packet of documents is then placed onthe conveyor 100, as well as the envelope. The packet of documents isthen processed through the scanner together as if it is a singledocument, so that the top face of the top document is scanned. Thepacket of documents and the envelope are then directed out the bypass165. Alternatively, if both addresses are viewable on the face of theenvelope, the envelope can simply be imaged without removing any of thedocuments. The envelope and the enclosed contents are then directed outthe bypass. The operator may select whether the envelope should beprocessed alone or with one of the enclosed documents. Before processingthe envelope, the operator identifies how the envelope is to beprocessed, inputs the information into the system, such as by a button,keyboard, mouse or otherwise, and then drops the envelope (and documentif appropriate) onto the conveyor.

Maintaining Transactional Integrity

All of the documents in an envelope are referred to as a transaction. Inaddition, in some applications the envelope may be considered part ofthe transaction. It is often important to ensure that documents from afirst transaction do not get mixed with documents from a secondtransaction. This is referred to as maintaining transactional integrity.

Because each envelope defines the boundaries for each transaction, andthe documents are initially contained within envelopes, the boundariesfor each transaction are known. However, once the documents are removedfrom an envelope and are placed onto the drop conveyor it is possiblefor the documents from different transaction to become mixed.Accordingly, preferably steps are taken to maintain the transactionalintegrity after the documents are removed from the envelopes. Inaddition, in applications in which the documents are already extractedfrom the envelopes, it may require intervention from the operator toindicate the end of a transaction.

One method for maintaining the transactional boundaries is to manuallyindicate the beginning point of a transaction. For instance, theapparatus may include a push button or a foot pedal that the operatordepresses to indicate the beginning or end of a transaction. Since theoperator extracts the documents from the envelope, the operator knowsWhich documents belong to a transaction. After the operator extracts thedocuments they are placed onto the drop conveyor one at the time. Afterthe last document is placed on the conveyor, the operator indicates theend of the transaction by pressing a button (or otherwise). The nextdocument will be processed as the first document in the nexttransaction.

A second method for maintaining transactional boundaries is toautomatically define the transaction based on the document type. Forinstance, if the transactions include two types of documents, theoperator places the documents onto the drop conveyor so that the secondtype of document is always the trailing document. Therefore, when theapparatus determines that a document is the second type of document, theapparatus assumes that the document is the last document in thetransaction, and the next document processed is considered to be in anew transaction. When using this method, the document type can bedetermined based on different characteristics that have been determinedfor the documents. For instance, the apparatus can determine that adocument is a check if it has a certain length and a MICR line.Therefore, if checks are the identifying document, the end of eachtransaction is automatically defined when the apparatus detects adocument having the certain length and a MICR line.

One way to implement the second method is to use the envelope as thetrailing document. An envelope is readily distinguishable from documentsbased on its thickness profile since envelopes generally have numerousfolds that cause thickness differences along the length of the envelope.Although only the contents were imaged in the discussion above, theenvelope can also be fed into the imaging station. Once the apparatusidentifies a document as an envelope based on the thickness profile, thetransaction is closed. If it is desired to keep the envelope, theenvelope can be sorted, and the envelope image can be included in theimages of the transactional boundaries. However, typically the envelopesimply serves as a divider, so that the envelope is outsorted throughthe bypass (as discussed above), the envelope image is deleted and thedocument that preceded the envelope is considered to be the lastdocument in the transaction. Alternatively, the envelope can be theleading document, so that the envelope marks the beginning of thetransaction rather than the end.

In certain instances this second instance may not properly identify thetransactional boundaries. For instance, using the above check example,if a transaction includes three documents and two of the documents arechecks, the transaction will be split into two transactions.Accordingly, rather than automatically defining the transactionalboundaries by document type, the boundaries my be defined by thetransition from one type of document to another. In other words, the endof a transaction is defined by the point at which the documentstransition from one type of document to another. If documents of thesecond type are supposed to be the trailing documents, then theapparatus assumes that when it identifies a transition from a documentthat is of the second type to a document that is of the first type,there is a transactional boundary. The document of the first type isassumed to be the first document in the next transaction.

Returning again to the check example, if checks are supposed to be thetrailing document type, then all of the documents in a series ofdocuments are considered to be in a single transaction until theapparatus identifies a transition from a check to a different type ofdocument. The last check is included in the first transaction and thesubsequent document is considered to be the first document in a secondtransaction.

A fourth method of maintaining transactional boundaries is a moreautomatic method that utilizes the extraction sensors. As discussedfurther above, the apparatus includes several sensors 75,76 that monitorthe envelope at the extraction station to determine whether the contentshave been extracted. Once the sensors indicate that the contents havebeen extracted, the envelope is automatically conveyed forwardly. Thisindication that the envelope is empty can be utilized to demark thetransactional boundaries.

For instance, once the sensors indicate that an envelope is empty, theapparatus assumes that all of the documents that are received in theimaging sensor within a subsequent time frame are considered to be inthe same transaction. Any documents after the time period are consideredto be in the next transaction. For instance, the time period may be 2seconds, so that after receiving an indication from the sensors that allof the documents are extracted from an envelope, all of the documentsthat are received in the imaging section in the next 2 seconds areconsidered to be the transaction that was extracted from the envelope.

In the second, third and fourth methods of defining the transaction, itwas assumed that the transaction were determined automatically based ondifferent characteristics. In addition, during any of these methods, theoperator may manually override the determination by pressing a button orotherwise, as described in the first method.

Operator Interface

As discussed previously, the apparatus includes a touchscreen display toprovide an input/output device for the operator to interface with theoperation of the machine. The interface between the operator and theapparatus may be more clearly explained with reference to FIGS. 11-14,which are pictures of screen displays.

Referring first to FIG. 11, the display includes three general areas.The bottom portion of the screen provides a toolbar of control buttons.The operator can control different aspects of the operation of theapparatus with these buttons, as described further below. The secondpart of the display is the left side of the screen above the toolbar.This lefthand portion displays thumbnail views of the recently scanneddocuments. The third portion of the display is the right side of thescreen above the toolbar. This right hand portion is a large view of thelast document to be scanned, unless a different document is selected bythe operator, as discussed further below. In addition, under the thirdarea a window is provided in which information is displayed, such asinformation regarding the batch of documents.

Referring to FIGS. 11-13, the thumbnail view section of the display canbe displayed in one of three views. In the first view (FIG. 11), thethumbnails are organized by transaction. In other words, each rowrepresents a transaction, so that a thumbnail of each document in atransaction is viewable in the same row. For instance, the transactionin the first row includes four documents and thumbnail views of eachdocument are displayed in the first row. In contrast, the thirdtransaction includes only two documents, as can be seen by the twothumbnail views in the display.

In the second view (FIG. 12), the thumbnail views are displayedaccording to the bins 205. The first row displays the thumbnail view foreach document in the top bin, and the thumbnail views are in the samesequence that the documents are in the top bin. Similarly the second rowdisplays the thumbnail views for the documents in the bin under the topbin, and so on through the bottom bin.

In the third view, the thumbnail views are simply displayed in thesequence in which the documents were processed. The first thumbnail inthe first row represents the first document scanned in a batch, and thethumbnails continue in the first row until the end of the first row. Thenext document is then displayed in the leftmost position in the secondrow. The display of the thumbnail views continues in this pattern untilall of the documents are displayed.

By touching the thumbnail view of any document, an enlarged view of thedocument is displayed in the right-hand viewer portion of the display.In addition, if a document is selected in one view (e.g. transactionview) and the view is changed (e.g. to bin view), the selected documentis also selected in the changed view.

More specifically, if the display is in transaction view, a document ina transaction can be selected, as shown in FIG. 11 (the selecteddocument is identified by a dark border surrounding the selecteddocument). If the operator desires to retrieve the selected document, itwould be desirable for the operator to know which bin the document islocated in, and how far the document is from the top of the stack.Accordingly, after selecting the document in transaction view, theoperator can switch to bin view by touching the “Switch” button on thebutton toolbar. The thumbnails will then be displayed according to bin,and the document that was selected in the transaction view will remainselected in the bin view so that the operator can see which bin thedocument is in and by counting the documents in the row that theselected document is in, the operator can determine how far the documentis from the top or bottom of the bin.

Similarly, if a document is selected in bin or sequence mode, and theview is switched to a different mode, the selected document will remainhighlighted after the view is switched.

The other buttons in the toolbar relate to other features of the device.For instance, as discussed above, during operation, the operator mayidentify the document type when the document is dropped onto theconveyor 100. Preferably, the five buttons in the center of the toolbarrepresent the five different types of documents being processed for abatch of documents. Accordingly, to identify the document type theoperator can simply touch the appropriate button when dropping adocument on the conveyor.

Further, as discussed above, the operator may manually identify thetransactional boundaries. Accordingly, after the operator places thelast document in a transaction onto the drop conveyor, the operatortouches the “new transaction” button, thereby indicating that the nextdocument is in a new transaction.

In addition, it may be desirable to include controls to allow theoperator to specify special scanning criteria for a document. Forinstance, if the operator notices that a document is particularly light,the operator may want to indicate that the document should be scanned ona darker setting than usual. Similarly, the operator may want to changethe image scanning from color to gray scale or vice versa, or theoperator may want to change the scan resolution. To provide suchcontrol, a special handling button may be provided on the display. Whenthe operator desires to specify some type of special handling, theoperator touches the special handling button when the document isdropped onto the conveyor. A display of the different special processingoptions may then be displayed, thereby allowing the operator to controlthe scanning characteristics on a piece by piece basis if necessary.

Reject Processing

During processing, a document may be rejected for one of severalreasons, such as too much skew or insufficient gap between documents forexample. There are two primary modes of processing the rejecteddocuments and the documents that were upstream from the document when itwas rejected.

In the first reject processing mode, the exact sequence of all of thedocuments within a batch is not critical. In such a mode, the rejectedpiece is sorted to a reject bin or directed out the bypass 165, and thesubsequent documents in the transaction are processed in accordance withthe ordinary procedures discussed above. At the end of the batch, all ofthe rejected documents are retrieved and processed again.

In the second reject processing mode, the order of the documents eitherwithin a batch or within the transactions is important. Therefore therejects and subsequent documents should be processed in a manner thatallows the proper order of the pieces to be maintained. Accordingly, ifa piece is rejected, all of the piece from the image entry feederforward are rejected. The apparatus then prompts the operator toretrieve all of the rejected documents and re-feed the documents in theproper order to resume processing.

Editing/Re-scanning

During processing, the operator may determine that a document needs tobe re-scanned. For instance, the operator may notice on the display 20that an image was too light. The operator selects the document bytouching the thumbnail image. If the operator is unsure in which bin thedocument is located, the operator can press the switch button and switchto bin view, which will show the operator the bin that the document islocated in, as discussed previously. The operator can then retrieve thedocument, and then select the re-scanning option from a list of editingfunctions. The document is then dropped onto the conveyor and is thenscanned. The newly scanned image replaces the previous image.

Similarly, if the operator notices that a document needs to be added,such as being added into a transaction that was already processed, theoperator selects the insert option from a list of editing functions. Thedocument is then dropped onto the conveyor and is then scanned. Thenewly scanned image is inserted into the appropriate transaction and/orinto the appropriate sequence in the batch. The operator can thenreplace the physical document into the proper document sequence. If thedocuments are sorted or stored according to document sequence number,then the document is inserted into the stack of documents according tothe document sequence number (i.e. the order in which the document wasoriginally processed; not the order in which it was re-scanned). In thealternative, the documents may be sorted and/or maintained according tothe document scan number (i.e. the order in which the documents arescanned). If the documents are kept according to the document scannumber, then the document should be in the proper order after it isscanned.

In certain instances the operator may determine that a document imageshould be deleted. To do so, the operator selects the thumbnail image ofthe document, and then selects the delete option from a list of editingfunctions, so that the image is discarded.

Yet another feature is the ability to move a document from onetransaction to another or within the sequence in the batch. A documentcan be moved in one of two ways. First, the operator can select thedocument by touching the thumbnail image. The operator then selects themove option from a list of editing functions. The operator is thenprompted to indicate where the document is to be moved to, such as whichtransaction and which document in the transaction. Alternatively,preferably the operator can move the document by drag and drop, bytouching the thumbnail and dragging the thumbnail across the screen tothe appropriate location.

Processing Documents with Detachable Portions

Overview

Frequently, documents include a portion that is designed to be detached.Most frequently, a perforation separates the detachable portion from thebody of the document. The detachable portion of the document is commonlyreferred to as a skirt. In some instances, the skirt may includeinformation that is helpful for further processing of the document. Forinstance, a check may have a skirt that identifies the invoice numbersthat correspond to the payment. When processing a batch of documents, itmay be desirable to process the checks with the skirt attached, ratherthan removing the skirt. Further, in certain instances, it may bedesirable to selectively remove the skirt.

Accordingly, documents with skirts may be processed as follows. Theoperator treats the documents with skirts just as other documents: thedocuments are dropped onto the drop zone of the conveyor withoutdetaching the skirt. The documents with the attached skirts are thenimaged at the imaging station, and sorted into one of the sort bins.After the documents are removed from the output bin, the skirts may beremoved if desired. Further still, if the documents with skirts have anidentifying characteristic, then the image data can be scanned for theidentifying characteristic. Documents having the characteristic can thenbe sorted to a particular bin. In this way, the skirts can be removed ingroups rather than one at a time.

Since the skirts may be discarded, it may be desirable to discard theskirt portion of the image as well, thereby reducing the file size forthe image data. Accordingly, if a document is identified as a documenthaving a skirt, the image data may be parsed to only retain the portionof the data corresponding to the portion of the document without theskirt. Alternatively, the image data can be parsed so that the image ofthe skirt is in one file and the image of the remaining portion of thedocument is in a separate file.

The documents with skirts may also be sorted according to variouscharacteristics on the documents. For instance, if the documents have aMICR or OCR line, the documents may be sorted according to informationin the MICR or OCR line. In one application, the documents may bechecks, and the MICR line may be read optically or by using a MICRreader, as discussed previously. The MICR line includes information thatidentifies the institution on which the check is drawn. Depending on theinstitution on which a check is drawn, it may be desirable to retain theskirt. Therefore, checks drawn on institutions for which the skirtshould be retained are sorted to one bin, or one of several bins, whilechecks drawn on institutions for which the skirt should be discarded aresorted into different bins. In this way, the checks for which the skirtshould be removed are separated from the checks for which the skirtsshould be detached and discarded. By separating the documents, theskirts can be detached in groups without removing skirts that should notbe detached.

In addition to sorting the documents based on various characteristics,the image data may be parsed based on various characteristics. Dependingon the account identified in the MICR line, the image data may be parsedso that only the image of the checks without the skirts is retained. Thescanned image data for the skirts are deleted. Similarly, based on theaccount identified in the MICR line of a check, the image data may beparsed into two files: one file for the check image data, one file forthe skirt image data.

EXAMPLE

A common document having a detachable portion is a check with adetachable skirt, such as the check document 250 illustrated in FIG. 17.The check document 250 includes the check portion 251 and a skirt 252 (asecond skirt 253 is shown in phantom, as discussed below). A perforatedline 254 allows the skirt to be separated from the check. The check 251is the negotiable instrument portion of the document that is processedby the financial institutions to make a payment from an account. Theskirt includes information about the payment, but it is not part of thenegotiable instrument.

A check with a skirt is a typical configuration for a business payment.The skirt will include information that is not necessary for thefinancial institution processing the check. Instead the information onthe skirt is typically used to credit the payor's account. For instance,company A may send out several invoices to company B. In order toproperly credit company B's account, any payment should includeinformation regarding the invoices being paid. Rather than returningcopies of the invoices with the check, the invoice information may besummarized on the skirt. This information is helpful to company A duringremittance processing to ensure that the payment is properly credited tocompany B's account. However, since the skirt is not part of thenegotiable instrument, the skirt is typically removed before the checkis submitted to a financial institution. The process of manuallyremoving the skirt portion after the documents are processed can bequite laborious, thereby reducing the efficiency for processing thedocuments. Therefore, it is desirable to reduce the manual laborrequired to remove the skirt portions of perforated documents or, ifpossible, to eliminate the need for removing the skirt manually.

One complication in improving the efficiency of processing documentshaving skirts is that there is no standard configuration for check/skirtdocuments. For instance, in FIG. 17 a two-panel document 250 is shown(with a third panel in phantom). The top part of the document is thecheck 251, the bottom part is the skirt 252, and a perforation 254connects the two portions so that the skirt is more easily removablefrom the check. In FIG. 17 the check 251 is illustrated as being abovethe skirt 252, so that the skirt is attached to the bottom edge of thecheck. However, in another common configuration the skirt is attached tothe top edge of the check. In addition, in some instances the documentmay be a tri-fold document having two skirt portions. FIG. 17illustrates such a tri-fold document, with the second skirt 253 shown inphantom. For such a check document, the check may be the top third,middle third or bottom third of the document. However, typically thecheck is the top third or bottom third of the document.

An additional complication arises when processing the bi-fold checkdocument shown in FIG. 17 because the document is generally squarerather than being elongated. Therefore, the size of the document doesnot necessarily provide an indication of the orientation of thedocument. The check could be oriented in either an upright orientationor in a rotated orientation in which the check is disposed vertically.Accordingly, the check could be in any of four orientations: upright,rotated 90°, rotated 180° (i.e. inverted), or rotated 270°.Additionally, as discussed above, the check could be located either onthe top half of the document or the bottom half of the document.Therefore, there are a total of eight different possibilities for thelocation of the check portion on the document.

In contrast, a tri-fold check document provides an indication of theorientation of the check because the check will be oriented so that thelength of the check is oriented across the short side of the document.In other words, based on the measured length of the sides of thedocument, it will be apparent whether a document is either upright orinverted (i.e. a portrait orientation), or either rotated 90° or rotated270° (i.e. landscape orientation). Accordingly, for certain documents itwill be possible to determine information regarding the orientation ofthe check based on the dimensions of the document. For other documentsthe dimensions may not provide information regarding the orientation ofthe check.

Although the size and position of a check on a check/skirt document canvary, there are certain standard features. Referring to FIG. 17, onecharacteristic is the MICR line 255. A MICR line is a sequence ofmagnetic ink characters, and every check is printed with a MICR line. Inaddition, the MICR line characters are printed in a standardized font(such as E-13B in the United States) and the line is positioned within apredetermined area of a check. Specifically, the MICR line is positioneda predetermined distance from the right edge of the check. The length ofthe MICR line is also standardized.

There are several options for processing the documents to reduce thelabor required to remove the skirt portions of the checks. The firststep in each option is to locate the check portion of the document. Inthe present instance, the check portion is identified by locating theMICR line, which can be done by implementing either a global search or alocal search.

Global Search

A global search entails searching the entire document in an attempt tolocate the MICR line. Referring to FIG. 17, the document is scanned tocreate an image data file. The image data is analyzed line by line. Whena mark is encountered the mark is analyzed to determine whether the markis a MICR character. Specifically, the marking is compared with standardMICR fonts using one of any known pattern matching methodologies. Onesuch method is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/653,693,filed on Aug. 30, 2003, which is owned by the Opex Corp., which is alsothe assignee of the present application. If it is determined that themark is a MICR character, the image data for the area adjacent the MICRcharacter is analyzed to determine whether the identified character ispart of a MICR line. The determination of whether a series of markingsis a MICR line can include a verification step based on a measuredcharacteristic, such as the length of the MICR line or the distance fromthe end of the MICR line to the edge of the document.

If the entire data file for a document is analyzed and a MICR line isnot identified, the document may be in a rotated orientation.Accordingly, the image data is analyzed as discussed above to determineif the document is in a first rotated orientation, such as a 90° rotatedorientation. If the entire data file is analyzed and a MICR line is notidentified, the image data is again analyzed to determine if thedocument is in a second rotated orientation, such as a 180° rotatedorientation. If the entire data file is analyzed and a MICR line is notidentified, the image data is again analyzed to determine if thedocument is in a third rotated orientation, such as a 270° rotatedorientation. If a MICR line is not identified in any of the fouranalyses of the image data, the document is identified as not being acheck, and is subsequently processed accordingly.

Local Search

The second methodology for identifying the MICR line is a localizedmethodology. Under the localized methodology, rather than scanning theentire data file, select portion of the image data are analyzed. Sincethe location of a MICR line on a check is standardized and since thelength and height of a MICR line is standardized, the possible locationsfor a MICR line on a document are limited to particular areas.

Referring to FIG. 18A a payment document is illustrated. The document250 includes the check portion 251, the detachable skirt portion 252,and the perforated line 254. The document in FIG. 18A is one in whichthe check portion 251 has the skirt 252 attached to the bottom edge ofthe check. Therefore, the MICR line is positioned in the windowidentified as 260 when the document is in an upright orientation. Asshown in FIG. 18A, in the upright orientation, the MICR line ispositioned adjacent the middle of the document.

FIG. 18A also illustrates the alternative locations of the MICR linewhen the document is in any of three alternative orientations. Forinstance, if the document is rotated 90° counter-clockwise, the MICRline would be located within window 261. If the window is rotated 180°,the MICR line would be located within window 262, and if the window isrotated 270° counter-clockwise, the MICR line would be located withinwindow 263.

FIG. 18B illustrates the four alternative locations of the MICR linewhen the skirt 252A is attached to the top edge of the check 251A asopposed FIG. 18A in which the skirt was attached to the bottom edge.Since the location of the check 251A on the document 250A is different,the location of the MICR line on the document will differ, asillustrated by the windows 260A, 261A, 262A, 263A in which the MICR lineis expected to be depending on the orientation of the document. As inFIG. 18A, window 260A corresponds to the expected location of the MICRline if the document is in an upright orientation. If the document isrotated 90° counter-clockwise, the MICR line would be located withinwindow 261A. If the window is rotated 180°, the MICR line would belocated within window 262A, and if the window is rotated 270°counter-clockwise, the MICR line would be located within window 263A.

FIG. 18C overlays the windows in FIG. 18A and the windows in FIG. 18B.Rather than scanning the image data for the entire document, the imagedata corresponding to each window can be analyzed in succession toevaluate the presence of a MICR line. Specifically, the image data foreach window is analyzed to identify the presence of a mark. If a mark isdetected, the mark is analyzed to determine whether the mark is a MICRcharacter. Depending on the window being analyzed, it may be possible toassume the expected orientation for a MICR character to aid in thepattern matching to analyze whether a marking is a MICR character. Forinstance, it may be assumed that if a MICR character is located in anarea of an image corresponding to window 262, the MICR character wouldbe in an inverted orientation. Therefore, rather than attempt to match amarking to a pattern indicative of an upright MICR character, themarking can be compared with a pattern indicative of an inverted MICRcharacter.

If a mark is determined to be a MICR character, the image data in therest of the window is analyzed to determine whether the image dataincludes a MICR line in the window. Since the orientation of a MICRcharacter has already been determined, the subsequent pattern matchingfor the MICR line may be performed presuming the orientation of theremaining MICR characters is the same as the first MICR character.Accordingly, the remaining markings can be compared with a patternindicative of a MICR character in the same orientation as the firstidentified MICR character.

If the image data for a window is analyzed and a MICR line is notidentified, the image data for the next window is analyzed. The imagedata for the windows 260, 260A, 261, 261A, 262, 262A, 263, 263A, areanalyzed in this way until either a MICR line is identified or the imagedata corresponding to all of the windows is analyzed. If a MICR line isnot identified in any of the windowed areas, the document is identifiedas not being a check, and is subsequently processed accordingly.

Once a MICR line is identified, the apparatus can determine whichportion of the document 250 is the check. For instance, if a MICR lineis identified in window 260, the apparatus determines that the document250 is in an upright orientation and that the skirt is attached to thelower edge of the skirt. Therefore, a boundary determination can be madefor the document to determine which part of the document is the check251 and which part is the skirt 252. Again, assuming that a MICR line isidentified in window 260, the apparatus determines that the boundary forthe check is along a horizontal line below the MICR line. Additionally,since the location of the MICR line relative to the bottom edge of thecheck is standardized, the apparatus may determine that the boundaryline for the check is a line parallel to the direction of the MICR lineand spaced below the MICR line a pre-determined distance.

In contrast, if the location of the MICR line indicates that the checkis attached to the bottom edge of the skirt, the boundary line betweenthe check and the skirt would not necessarily correspond to apre-determined distance from the MICR line, because the height of acheck is not currently standardized. Therefore, some other criteria isused to determine the boundary line between the check and the skirt. Forinstance, many skirts are configured to be the same size as the check.Therefore, in some instances, the location of the boundary may bedetermined based on the height of the document and the location of theMICR line. Specifically, the height of the document may be determinedbased on the image data. If the MICR line in identified in window 260A,the boundary line may be determined to be a line parallel to the MICRline located halfway up the height of the document.

In addition to the location of the MICR line, other characteristics canbe used to identify or validate the location of the boundary for thecheck. For instance, other features such as the location of the courtesybox 256, the date entry line 257 or the address 258 printed on thecheck, are all characteristics that may be used to identify whichportion of tIe document is the check.

The various features may be used in combination to increase thelikelihood that the check identification decision is correct. Forinstance, the MICR line 255 may be identified as described above. Inaddition, based on the location and orientation of the MICR line, theimage data may be analyzed to attempt to identify the address 258 on thecheck, which is customarily located in the top left portion of a check.As with the MICR line, the address determination can be done usingeither a global search of the document or using a local search to searchselect portions of the document in which the address would be expectedto be based on the orientation of the check.

The address determination can be used to validate the MICRdetermination. For instance, if the address is identified in anorientation and location corresponding to the orientation and locationdetermined for the MICR line, then the location and orientation of theMICR line is validated so that it can be used to determine the checkboundary. If the location of the address does not correspond to thelocation or orientation of the MICR line, then the document may beflagged for alternative processing.

Additionally, the address determination can be used in combination withthe MICR line to determine the boundary for the check. For instance, theMICR line can be used to identify the bottom edge of the check, and theaddress can be used to identify the top edge of the check.

In addition to the global and local searches discussed above, theapparatus may also provide for manually identifying the portion of thedocument that corresponds to the check. For instance, the image of thedocument may be displayed on a monitor, and the operator may be providedwith a mechanism for dragging a window around the portion of the windowcorresponding to the check. One such mechanism may be a touch screenmonitor. Using a touch screen, the operator touches the screen to locateand size a selection window around the check portion of the document.Alternative input devices could also be used, such as a mouse, atouchpad or a stylus.

Additionally, the input device can be used to override and/or confirmthe boundary determination made by the apparatus in some situations. Forexample, the system may make a best guess determination of the checkboundary based on various characteristics. If the level of certainty ofthe determined boundary is below a certain level, the system may make abest guess of the boundary and then display the scanned image of thedocument 250 with a window showing the best guess for the boundary. Ifthe best guess is accurate, the operator can confirm the selection. Ifit is inaccurate, the operator may resize and/or re-locate the window toselect the correct boundary for the check.

Assigning Reference Information

Another aspect of the apparatus 10 is the ability to assign one or morepieces of information to one or more documents. The information may beassigned to a single document, or it may be assigned to each document ina transaction, batch or entire job comprising multiple batches. Aninterface between the operator and the apparatus is provided so that theoperator can input the reference information when necessary or desired.

One way that reference information can be assigned is according tobatch. Typically, batch information is assigned prior to processing abatch of documents. Each document in the batch is then tagged with thebatch information. The batch reference information can be physically orelectronically tagged to the document. The reference information can bephysically tagged to a piece by printing the reference information ontothe piece by the printer modules 190. The reference information can beelectronically tagged by associating the reference information with eachpiece in a data file. For instance, a data file may be produced for eachdocument, which would include information such as the sequence number ofthe piece, the image data for the piece, the date and time the piece wasprocessed and information that is electronically determined, such as aMICR line or an OCR line on the piece. The batch reference informationmay be included in the data file for the pieces in the batch.

Another way that the reference information can be electronically taggedto a piece is by electronically printing the information on the imagedata. More specifically, the reference information is added to the imagedata for a piece, so that when the image data is viewed, the referenceinformation also appears. The reference information may overlay theimage data so that when the image is viewed, the information appears tobe printed on the document. However, more typically, the referenceinformation is positioned adjacent the image when the image is viewed.

When tagging a batch of documents with batch reference information, itis desirable to identify the reference information before processing thedocuments. By identifying the batch reference information prior toprocessing, the reference information can readily be tagged to thedocuments while the documents are processed through the apparatus. Insome instances it may be acceptable to identify the batch informationafter the batch has been processed.

The batch reference information may be identified in any number of ways.The operator may key reference information into the apparatus through akeyboard or similar input device. Alternatively, the operator may scanin the reference information. For example, the apparatus may include ahand-held bar code scanner that can be used to scan in referenceinformation. It is also possible to identify the reference informationby the processing of a document. For instance, before the first piece ofmail is processed, a document with reference information printed on itmay be processed through the machine. The reference information may be abar code, a MICR line, characters that can be read using OCR orotherwise. The apparatus may scan the first piece, read the referenceinformation and then identify the documents with the referenceinformation.

In addition to tagging documents with reference information according tobatch, documents can be tagged by transaction. A transaction includesone or more documents that were extracted from a single envelope. Incertain instances it may be desirable to tag each document in atransaction with reference information that relates to the transaction.As with batch reference information, transactional reference informationmay be identified manually by operator input or automatically byscanning information off of a document. After the transaction ends, theapparatus stops tagging documents with the transactional referenceinformation.

In addition to batch and transaction basis, reference information may betagged to a document on a document by document basis. As with thediscussion of batch and transactional reference information, documentreference information may be identified manually by the operator orautomatically. With document reference information the information isonly tagged to the specific document. However, the document may haveseveral pages. If the document has several pages, each page is taggedwith the document reference information.

As discussed above, reference information can be tagged to documents ona job, batch, transaction, or document basis. In addition, thereferences can be combined so that a particular document in a job couldbe tagged with job reference information, batch reference information,transactional reference information and document reference information.Further still, there can be several of each type of referenceinformation. For example, a document may have a single piece of batchreference information, two pieces of transactional referenceinformation, and two pieces of document reference information.

The following examples illustrate applications of the referenceinformation described above. A first example illustrates a use of batchreference information. One of the benefits of scanning images of eachdocument is that the document images can be used during subsequentprocessing rather than the original documents. Therefore, it may bepossible to discard the documents and simply use the images. However, itmay be necessary to examine an original document in the event that thereis a dispute regarding the document or if the document image does notshow all of the details of the document. Accordingly, it is desirable toprovide an efficient method for scanning and archiving documents tofacilitate retrieval of the documents at a later time if necessary.

The first step is to provide a container, such as an archive box, ontowhich a unique identifier is attached, such as a barcode. Beforeprocessing a batch of documents, the operator is prompted on the viewscreen to enter the identification number for the archive box. Theoperator scans the bar code using a hand held bar code scanner connectedto the apparatus 10. The bar code scanner reads the bar code and decodesthe bar code to determine the identification number for the archive box.Alternatively, the identification number may be printed on the archivebox and the operator may manually key the box number into the system.The identification number for the box is the reference information forthe batch of documents that are to be stored in the box. Other referenceinformation may also be identified for the batch. For instance, theoperator may key in information about the batch of documents such aswhat type of documents are in the batch or where they were receivedfrom.

After the operator identifies the batch reference information, theoperator processes the documents. For instance, if the batch ofdocuments were previously extracted from envelopes, the documents areprocessed by dropping the documents onto the conveyor, either alone orin packets. The documents are then scanned and discharged into theoutput bins, as described previously. During the processing, thedocuments are electronically tagged with the batch data. Afterprocessing, the documents are removed from the bin or bins and placedinto the archive box. Preferably, a sequence number and the boxidentifier are printed onto the documents as the documents areprocessed, and the documents are placed into the archive box in orderaccording to sequence.

Further processing for the processed documents can be accomplished usingthe image data for the documents. However, if the physical documentneeds to be retrieved, the data file for the document will identify theidentification number for the box in which the document is located, andthe sequence number for where the document is located within the box.And again, when the document needs to be replaced, the correct box andlocation can be readily determined since the document is taggedphysically and/or electronically with the box identification number andsequence number.

In this way, a processed document can be easily stored and efficientlyretrieved if necessary. At the same time, the box identification numbercan be identified directly off of the box and the documents can godirectly into the box after processing, so that there is less likelihoodof placing the wrong documents into the wrong box. Further still, if thebox identification number is scanned in off of the box, such as by a barcode scanner, there is less likelihood that the wrong identificationnumber will be entered for a box, which could lead to mis-storing abatch of documents.

A second example of using reference information is an application thatuses transactional reference information. Frequently, important papersare sent via a courier that tracks the location of the package from theperson shipping the package to the person receiving the package. Mosttypically, the packages are tracked using some type of bar code. Whenthe documents are received and then scanned it is desirable to retainthe tracking information for the package, but it is normally desirableto discard the packaging materials.

Accordingly, a batch of documents in courier envelopes, such as FederalExpress, Express Mail or UPS envelopes, can be processed as follows.Before processing the documents in the envelope, the operator identifiesthe transactional reference information for the documents in theenvelope. The operator can key in the information, but preferably, theoperator simply scans the tracking bar code on the package with a barcode scanner. After the transactional reference information isidentified, each document in the transaction is processed and eachdocument in the transaction is tagged with the transactional referenceinformation.

To ensure that the transactional reference information is associatedwith the proper document, it is important to ensure that the beginningand ending of a transaction are properly defined. The beginning of atransaction can be identified manually by the operator pushing a starttransaction button. Alternatively, the beginning may simply be definedby the act of scanning the tracking bar code. The system then treatsevery subsequently processed document as a part of the transaction untilthe end of the transaction is somehow indicated.

The end of the transaction can be identified in one of several ways. Forinstance, the operator can manually depress an end of transaction buttonafter the last document in a transaction is processed. Alternatively,the act of scanning in the next tracking bar code can indicate the endof a transaction. Specifically, after scanning a tracking bar code, thesystem may assume that all of the subsequent documents are part of thesame transaction until the operator scans the next tracking bar code. Inother words, the act of scanning the tracking bar code can operate asboth an indicator of the end of the previous transaction and thebeginning of the next transaction.

As described above, the transactional reference information is typicallyidentified prior to scanning the transactional documents. The methoddescribed above included scanning the bar code for the referenceinformation, processing a transaction, and then scanning the next barcode for the next transaction. It may be desirable to identify thereference information for the next transaction while the previoustransaction is still being fed into the imaging station. Accordingly,the operator may indicate whether the reference information is for thecurrent transaction or the next transaction. This option may bedisplayed on the view screen as a choice to be made before inputting thereference information.

In this way, while the machine is processing a transaction, the operatormay select the next transaction option and then enter transactionreference information for the next transaction. The system will continueto process the current transaction with the previous transactionreference information. After the current transaction is done beingprocessed, the operator drops the next transaction onto the dropconveyor and the system tags the documents with the new transactionalreference information that the operator had already entered.

Another application of reference information relates to the use ofdocument reference information. In certain instances, the operator maymanually identify some information regarding a document that may not bereadily identifiable from the scanned image. Prior to scanning theimage, the operator identifies the information regarding the document,such as by keying the information into the system via a keyboard orother interface, such as a voice recognition system. For instance, if adocument has unusual printing that does not optically scan well, someonelooking at a subsequently scanned image of the document may not knowthat the image may not accurately reflect the document. One example is adocument that has red ink, which does not scan as well as other colors.When viewing the image, it may appear that certain information ismissing or incorrect. If the person viewing the image knows that thedocument had red ink printing, the person may more readily recognize theneed to retrieve the original document, or alter the processing of thedocument. For example, during subsequent processing, an operator may beviewing the document image to credit a customer's account with apayment. The amount of the check may not be clear on the check becausethe printing on the check could not be properly scanned (e.g. too light,printed in red ink etc.). The operator may have recognized the problemwith the printing, manually read the check-amount, and keyed in theinformation as document reference information. During subsequentprocessing, the operator crediting the payment may use the documentreference information to identify the amount to credit the customer'saccount.

Yet another example of using document reference information is a memo onthe memo line of a check or document. A customer may write informationin the memo line, such as an account number, or some indication that thedocument requires special processing. When scanning the documents, theoperator may manually read the information and input the information asdocument reference information. The document reference information canbe used to sort the document. For instance, the document referenceinformation could specify that there is a change of address. All suchdocuments may be sorted separately. Subsequently, an operator mayprocess all of the change of address documents at once by viewing theimage, and keying in the change of address information into thecustomer's account.

Each of the foregoing applications only discussed using a single type ofreference information. However, as previously described, the differenttypes of reference data can be used in combination. For instance, in thefirst example, all of the documents in a batch were tagged with batchreference information regarding the identification number for the boxinto which the documents were to be archived. If the batch includes apackage with a tracking bar code, the operator may scan the bar code sothat all of the documents in the package are identified with thetracking information. At the end of the transaction, the operatorpresses an end of transaction button to indicate the end of thetransaction. Further, when processing one of the documents in thetransaction, the operator may notice an anomaly with one of thedocuments. Before processing the document, the operator may inputreference information for the specific document, and only thatparticular document is tagged with the document information.

In yet another example, a job may include two batches of documents thatare mixed together, and the documents are to be tagged with the properbatch reference information. In such an instance, the proper batchreference information should be identified for each document, which canbe done in one of several ways. For instance, the operator can identifybatch reference information for a first batch, and the documents aretagged with the first batch reference information until some document isidentified as being in the second batch. This can be done by theoperator indicating that the document is one being in the second batch.The document is then tagged as being in the second batch. Similarly,subsequent documents may be tagged as being in the second batch until adocument is identified as being in the first batch. Alternatively, thebatch into which a document belongs may be identified on a document bydocument or transaction by transaction basis.

One application of the mixed batch would be in which a job of documentsneeds to be sorted according to certain criteria and stored into twodifferent boxes. Before processing a job of documents, the operator mayscan the first box and identify the box identification number as batchreference information for a first batch of documents. The operator maythen scan the second box to identify the box identification number asbatch reference information for a second batch of documents. As thedocuments are processed the documents are identified as being in thefirst batch or the second batch. The batch reference information istagged on the respective documents and the documents are sorted into theoutput bins according to batch. The documents from the first batch arethen removed from the appropriate bins and placed into the first box andthe documents from the second batch are removed from the appropriatebins and placed in the second batch.

As mentioned previously, the batch to which a documents is identifiedmay be determined in a number of different ways. One example in themixed batch application is to sort documents into batches based oninformation on the documents. Specifically, a MICR line includesinformation regarding the institution from which a check is drafted. TheMICR line may be read for the checks as the documents are processed, andthe documents can then be sorted into batches according to theinstitutions. For instance, if a transaction has a check that is draftedfrom a first institution (or group of institutions), then all of thedocuments in the transaction are identified with first batch referenceinformation. If a transaction has a check that is drafted from a secondinstitution (or group of institutions), then all of the documents areidentified with second batch reference information.

As can be seen from the foregoing examples, the apparatus 10 providesflexibility in processing documents in an automated manner, whileallowing for efficient intervention from the operator to supplement ormodify the information stored for the documents. Several applicationshave been described, however the flexibility of the features of theapparatus allow it to be used in a wide variety of applications usingdifferent combinations of different features. Accordingly, althoughparticular embodiments and applications of the apparatus have beenillustrated and described, it is not intended to be limited to thespecific embodiments and applications.

Processing Lockbox Documents

Rather than handle payments that come in the mail, many companies paylockbox processing companies to process the mail and deposit thepayments. Lockbox mail is included in first-class mail, but itrepresents a small portion of the mail. However, due to the nature ofwholesale lockbox mail, the lockbox mail receives special expeditedtreatment. Specifically, wholesale lockbox mail typically includesrelatively high dollar volume payments. Therefore, the lockbox customersdesire to have the payments deposited into their accounts as rapidly aspossible.

Although customers desire rapid deposit of the checks, the nature ofwholesale payments makes it difficult to process the payments usinghigh-speed automated systems. Wholesale lockbox payments are typicallynot “clean mail” (i.e. mail pieces that includes a single check and acorresponding standardized payment stub). Wholesale lockbox payments aretypically business payments and different businesses make their paymentsin different ways. Some businesses pay multiple invoices with a singlecheck; some businesses include copies of the invoices, some do not; andsome businesses simply print the invoice numbers and amounts on a skirtattached to the check. In addition, often the size of the documents islarger than the size of documents that can typically be handled byhigh-speed fully automated systems. This variety in the format of thetransactions has typically required significant human intervention toprocess the payments.

Further, lockbox processors typically process mail for hundreds orthousands of customers. Often a zip code will be designated for aparticular lockbox processor, so that the post office simply groupstogether all of the mail to the zip code and either delivers it to thelockbox processor or notifies the lockbox processor that the mail isready for pick-up. The lockbox processor may use P.O. box numbers toidentify each customer (i.e. each customer is assigned a separate P.O.box number). Therefore the processor can separate the mail for eachcustomer by sorting the mail according to P.O. Box. Since each customeris different, some customers may receive large quantities of mail on aregular basis, while some customers may receive small quantities ofmail. One of the challenges in processing the lockbox mail is toefficiently process the payments rapidly in light of the variety oftypes of mail, the variety in the volume of mail for each customer andthe variety in how each customer wants the documents handled.

Overview of Lockbox Method

As discussed further below, the mail processing apparatus 10 can beutilized to process lockbox payment in a variety of ways. First, thedocuments are extracted from the envelopes and then scanned to acquireimage data for each document. As the documents are scanned, theapparatus 10 separates the document images to group the documentstogether according to transaction. In other words, the apparatus groupstogether the images for documents removed from a particular envelope andseparates the images from images for documents extracted from otherenvelopes. The document images are analyzed to extract various data,such as the payor, the payee and the amount of the payment. The paymentsare credited to the payees' accounts and a report may be provided foreach payee that summarizes information regarding the payments received.In addition, the document images and the extracted information may becombined to provide electronic records that include the informationnecessary to submit the checks to a financial institution to clear thechecks.

Rather than separating the batches of mail by P.O. Box (i.e. bycustomer) and then separately processing the mail for each customer, themethod can be utilized to process mixed batches of mail that includenumerous customers, thereby eliminating one or more sorting steps.Further, by scanning each document and using the image data to processthe documents, the need to handle the documents during numerousprocessing steps is eliminated. In addition, each payment can beprocessed separately from extraction of the documents to the deposit ofthe check, without delaying the deposit of the check to group the checkwith other payments for the customer. The information for the variouspayments can be combined together into a report to the customer afterthe deposits are made. These and other advantages are discussed ingreater detail in the following sections.

Extracting and Scanning

The apparatus 10 is operable to process batches of mail in a variety ofways. According to one methodology, the mail is sorted so that the mailfor each customer is grouped together. The mail is then processedcustomer by customer so that all of the payments for a particularcustomer are processed together and deposited together.

Alternatively, the mail may be processed without sorting the mail bycustomer. Instead, the mail is processed as a mixed batch with aplurality of payments from numerous payors to numerous payees. Forinstance a batch of 20,000 mail pieces may include payments from 20,000payors to 500 payees. In some instances lockbox processors may utilizework groups that process the mail for certain groups of customers. Forinstance, a lockbox processor may use 10 work groups to process the mailfor 500 customers. Each work group may be assigned approximately 50customers. Therefore, when the mail is received, the mail is sorted intogroups of customers. In other words, the mail for the customers thatwork group 1 processes is separated from the mail that work group 2processes. These smaller batches of mail may then be processed by thework groups as mixed batches of mail.

To process the documents, the mail is opened and the documents areextracted from the envelopes. The extraction may be performed on theapparatus 10 by the operator as described previously. However, in someinstance, it may be desirable to extract the documents using a differentapparatus and then utilize the present apparatus 10 to scan and sort thedocuments. Although either method can be used, the following discussiondescribes the methodology using the apparatus 10 to extract thedocuments.

A mixed batch of mail is placed into the input bin and the feeder 30serially feeds the mail. From the input bin, the pieces are conveyedpast one or more cutters that cut open one or more edges of theenvelopes. The envelopes are then conveyed to the extraction station 70where the cut envelops are pulled open to present the contents to theoperator. The operator manually removes the contents and drops thecontents onto the roller bed either one at the time or as a packet.

Before dropping the documents onto the conveyor 100, the operator mayvisually inspect the documents for certain characteristics. Forinstance, the operator may examine the check to ensure that the check ismade out to a customer and that the customer is properly identified. Inother words, if the lockbox processor does not handle the mail for whomthe check is made out, the operator may place the check and theaccompanying document into an outsort bin to be handled separately. Ifthe operator identifies some other problem with a check or anaccompanying document, the operator may outsort the document(s) ratherthan scanning the document(s).

As discussed previously, the mail received by a wholesale lockboxprocessor may be in any of a variety of formats. Typically the mailpieces are payments so that each transaction includes a check. The checkmay be the only document in the transaction, or there may be otherdocuments in the transaction, such as a copy of the invoice(s) beingpaid. If a documents is folded, the operator unfolds the document anddrops the document onto the conveyor 100.

The documents are fed into a scanner and image data is acquired for eachdocument as described previously. In addition, it may be desirable toscan the documents to attempt to read any MICR characters on a document.Specifically, checks are encoded with a MICR line that includesinformation regarding the check, such as the bank and the account whichthe check is drawn against. Accordingly, as described previously, a MICRreader may scan each document to attempt to read the MICR line on thedocuments. To facilitate reading the MICR line, the operator may dropthe check onto the conveyor in a particular orientation to ensure thatthe MICR line is aligned with the MICR reader. For instance, the MICRreader may be oriented to read the MICR line when the checks aredisposed in an face-up, upright orientation. Therefore, the operatorwould drop the check onto the conveyor so that the front face of thecheck is facing up and the bottom edge of the check is toward the guiderail 105 of the conveyor. However, preferably, the MICR reader isconfigured so that the MICR reader can read the MICR line when the checkis in a variety of orientations. For instance, preferably the MICRreader can read the MICR line when the check is face down and when thetop edge of the check is toward the guide rail. However, preferably, theoperator drops the check onto the conveyor so that either the right orleft side of the check is the leading edge as the check enters the MICRreader, rather than the top or bottom edge of the check being theleading edge. In other words, preferably the check is fed into the MICRreader in a landscape orientation so that the MICR characters in theMICR line are serially conveyed past the MICR reader.

After the documents are scanned, the documents are sorted into aplurality of output bins. As discussed previously, the documents can besorted in a variety of ways depending on the needs of the lockboxprocessor and the desires of the customers. For instance, since thedocuments have been scanned, the images of the documents may beforwarded to the customers, rather than forwarding the actual documents.However, some customers may desire to receive the actual documents.Documents for customers who desire to receive the actual documents maybe sorted to a separate bin so that the documents can be forwarded tothe customer.

As described previously, the images of all of the documents from asingle envelope are associated together as a single transaction. This isreferred to as maintaining transactional boundaries, and as describedpreviously, several methodologies can be utilized to maintain thetransactional boundaries, such as determining the transactionalboundaries based on the transition from a first type of document to asecond type of document or by the operator manually identifying thetransactional boundaries, such as by pushing a button. Although theimages are maintained so that the images for the documents areassociated together, the actual documents for a transaction may beseparated from one another. For instance, the documents may be processedso that all of the checks are sorted into one or more output bins, whileall of the accompanying documents are sorted into one or more separatebins.

Analyzing Images/information Acquisition

Since the documents are scanned to acquire images of the documents, thedocument images can be used during subsequent processing rather thanreferring to the actual documents. In order to process the payments,several pieces of information are determined. For example, the payor,the payee and the amount of the payment are determined.

Determining Payment Information

Much of the information for a payment may be extracted from the imagedata for the check. Specifically, each payment includes a check, whichidentifies the payee, the amount of the payment, the payor, the payor'sbank, and the payor's bank account information. The relevant paymentdata can be determined for each payment either automatically or manuallyby an operator. Specifically, as discussed further below, the image datafor the documents in a payment can be automatically analyzed to attemptto determine and/or validate each piece of data needed for a paymentrecord. Alternatively, the image data for each document can be displayedfor an operator who can view the image, determine the paymentinformation and input the payment data. Although it may be possible todetermine the payment information using either an automated methodologyor manually using operator intervention, preferably the paymentinformation is determined using a combination of automated and manualtechniques, as described further below. For instance, the paymentinformation may be determined using various automated techniques, andthe payment data may be validated and corrected as necessary by anoperator before the payment record is finalized.

Automated Data Determination

The following discussion describes several techniques that may beemployed to determine various elements of payment data without humanintervention. First, as described above, a MICR reader may be employedto scan each check to read MICR information on the documents. The mostcommon type of MICR information is the MICR line on checks. If the MICRreader identifies and reads the MICR line, the information from the MICRline may be added to the data record for each payment. The data from theMICR line may include the identification of the payee's bank and bankaccount number.

In addition to the data from the MICR reader, an image processor, in theform of a microprocessor may be used to analyze the image data for eachdocument in a transaction to identify various pieces of payment data.For instance, the image data for a check may be analyzed using opticalcharacter recognition (OCR) to identify data. Although the documents inwholesale lockbox mail vary, the general format for checks has certainstandards. For example, on a check, the payor is typically identified onthe upper lefthand corner of the check, the MICR line is located on thebottom edge of the check, the payee is located in the middle of thedocument, next to the courtesy box in which the amount of the check isidentified in numerical format, and the amount of the check is againprinted, but in word form, below the payee. Further, the check isnormally dated on the upper righthand side of the check.

Although much or most of the information for a payment may be identifiedby analyzing the image data for a check, some data for the payment maybe identified on documents accompanying the check. For instance, apayment may include a copy of the invoice or invoices that are beingpaid. Although the form and format for the documents received for all ofthe lockbox processor's customers may vary greatly, the documents foreach particular customer may include certain consistencies. Therefore,the documents that accompany a payment for a particular customer may beanalyzed using expected characteristics for the documents for theparticular customer's documents.

For instance, each customer likely uses a similar format for all of itsinvoices. Therefore, a database may store information for the layout ofa particular customer's invoices. When a payment is identified for thecustomer, the documents in the transaction are analyzed to determinewhether the document's characteristics match the characteristic featuresstored in the database for the customer's invoices. If thecharacteristic features match, then the document is analyzed todetermine various payment data, such as the invoice number and theinvoice amount.

For example, customer A may use an invoice that is 8½×11 inches, andincludes the customer's logo in the upper lefthand corner. Further, theinvoice includes an OCR line at the bottom of the invoice, whichidentifies the customer account number and the amount of the invoice.

A transaction including two documents is analyzed. The first document isdetermined to be a check, and an analysis of the image data for thecheck indicates that the check is payable to customer A. The informationin the database regarding customer A's invoices is retrieved from thedatabase, and the second document is analyzed to determine whether thedocument has the characteristics expected for customer A's invoices.Specifically, if the document is 8½×11 inches (or within an acceptablerange) and an analysis of the image data indicates a pattern matchingcustomer A's logo, then the document is determined to be customer A'sinvoice and the document is analyzed accordingly. The image data for thedocument is then analyzed to identify and read the OCR line at thebottom of the document to determine the invoice number and amount.

In addition to identifying the document as customer A's invoice, theidentified characteristics can be used to determine the orientation ofthe document. Referring to the above example, if customer A's logo isexpected in the upper righthand corner and the logo is identified in thelower lefthand, then the document is determined to be inverted (i.eupside down), and the image data is analyzed accordingly to identify theOCR line.

As discussed above, a database may include stored information regardingvarious characteristic of documents for particular customers. Thisinformation can be retrieved to analyze documents or image data for thedocuments to determine information regarding the particular payment.Although a particular example has been discussed above, the methodologyfor processing lockbox documents is not limited to a particular processfor analyzing documents. Rather, a variety of techniques may be utilizedfor automatically identifying documents and determining documentcharacteristics.

Manual Data Determination

In addition to the automated data determination techniques discussedabove, it may be desirable to use human operators to determine some orall of the payment information for a transaction. The simplest mannerfor utilizing a human operator is to display the image data on thedisplay 20 so that the operator of the apparatus 10 can view thedocuments and key in the relevant payment information. For example, thedocuments for each transaction may be displayed on the display 20, andthe operator reads the image of the check to identify the name of thecompany making the payment, the company to whom the payment is made, theamount of the payment etc. The operator then inputs the paymentinformation using an input device, such as a keyboard.

Although the image data can be displayed locally by the apparatus 10, itis typically more efficient to export the image data so that the imagedata can be viewed at a remote location by a different operator. Forinstance, the image data may be exported to remote workstations via anyof a variety of connections, such as over a local area network or via asecure connection over the internet. At the remote workstations, theoperators view the image data and key in the relevant information foreach payment. The payment information for each transaction is thenstored in a database along with the image data for the documents in thetransaction.

Validating Payment Information

In addition to identifying the information for a payment, it isdesirable to validate some or all of the data regarding a payment. Aswith the process for identifying the data, the payment data may bevalidated manually, automatically or by using a combination of manualand automated processes.

One method for automatically validating payment information is byverifying the payment data from one document in a transaction withinformation from elsewhere in the transaction. For instance, using OCRit may be possible to identify the amount of a payment by analyzing theimage data for the courtesy box on a check. The courtesy box is the areaon a check where the check amount is written in numerical form (e.g.$123.45). The payment amount can be validated by using OCR to analyzethe image data for the payment line, where the check amount is writtenin word form (e.g. One Hundred Twenty Three and 45/100). If the OCRanalysis of the courtesy box and the OCR analysis of the payment lineresult in the same number, then the payment amount may be considered tobe validated.

In other instances, payment data may be validated using informationidentified from other documents in a transaction. For example, atransaction may include a check and a copy of an invoice. As describedpreviously, using various templating or other document analysistechniques, it may be possible to use OCR to analyze the image data forthe invoice to identify the invoice amount. In addition, as describedabove, using OCR, the payment amount for a check may be determinedautomatically. If the invoice amount determined by OCR matches the checkamount determined by OCR, then the payment amount may be considered tobe validated.

Further, in some instances it may be desirable to scan the envelope fora transaction to acquire image data for the envelope. In such anapplication, the envelope may be processed as if it is a document in therespective transaction. In certain applications, the information fromthe envelope can be used to verify information regarding the payment.For instance, as discussed previously, typically, a lockbox processorassigns a P.O. box number to each customer. Therefore, the customer fora particular lockbox should be the payee on checks directed to thatparticular lockbox. The image data for an envelope may be analyzed usingOCR to identify the P.O. box number in the address. If the P.O. Boxnumber on an envelope does not match the payee on the check in thetransaction, then the documents may be electronically tagged and sortedseparately from the validated document. Additionally, or alternatively,the image data for the documents in the transaction may be identifiedand stored separately from the images for the validated documents.

In addition to automatically validating the payment information, some ofthe data may be validated manually. For instance, the image data may beprocessed by an image processor as described above to determine variousdata regarding a payment. After the image data is processed toautomatically determine the payment data, the image data may bedisplayed to an operator who can view the image data along with thepayment data determined by the image processor. The operator can theneither confirm the correctness of the payment data determined by theimage processor or correct the payment data by inputting the correctpayment information. Similarly, if any of the payment data cannot beidentified automatically, the operator can input the information. If theoperator adds payment data or changes the payment data, the operator maybe prompted to confirm the payment information after the information isinput.

As mentioned, one of the pieces of information to be determined andpreferably validated is the payee. In particular, it is desirable toidentify mis-directed and mis-identified payments so that the paymentsare not processed and potentially deposited inappropriately.Mis-directed payments are payments that are payable to a company that isnot one of the lockbox processor's customers. For instance, if the mailincludes a check payable to ABC Inc., and the lockbox processor does notprocess mail for a company named ABC, then the payment is mis-directed.Mis-identified payments are payments that are directed to one of thelockbox processor's customers, but the customer name is mis-identifiedon the check. For instance, the customer name may be Smith MachineryInc. and the check may be made out to Smith Inc. or Smith Machinery. Theidentification Smith Machinery would likely be an acceptableidentification for depositing the check into the bank account of SmithMachinery Inc, however Smith Inc. may not be an acceptableidentification.

Generally, each customer has a listing of acceptable indications for thecustomer's name. For the Smith Machinery Inc. example, the list ofacceptable identifications may include Smith Machinery Inc., SmithMachinery, Smith Machine, Smyth Machinery Inc, Smyth Machinery Inc, andother variations. If any of these variations are used on a payment, thepayee identification is acceptable. If not, the payment is considered tobe mis-identified.

Mis-directed or mis-identified mail may be identified in a variety ofways. For instance, the operator processing the mail may manuallyidentify mis-identified or mis-directed mail. After extracting the mail,and before dropping the mail onto the conveyor 100, the operatorexamines the check in a transaction to identify the person or company towhom the check is made payable. If the payee on the check is not a validpayee, the operator places the check and any accompanying documents intoan outsort bin so that the documents are not scanned. Instead, themis-directed or mis-identified payments are processed separately, asdiscussed further below. Using the operator to identify mis-directedand/or mis-identified mail may be an efficient use if the mail ispre-sorted into batches for an individual customer or a group of alimited number of customers. However, for mixed mail that potentiallyincludes mail for a large number of customers it is less likely to beefficient to use the operator to identify mis-directed or mis-identifiedpayments before the documents are scanned.

Rather than using the operator, the payee may be identified andvalidated automatically. As discussed previously, using OCR, an imageprocessor may analyze the image data for a check to determine the personor company to whom the check is made payable. In addition, a data filemay be maintained that identifies all of the acceptable identificationsfor all of the lockbox processor's customers. After the payee isdetermined using OCR, the identified payee is compared to the list ofacceptable customer identifications. If the identified payee does notmatch one of the acceptable identifications, the documents may beelectronically tagged and outsorted. Alternatively, or additionally, thedocument images may be identified and/or stored separately from theproperly identified document images.

Processing Mis-Directed or Mis-Identified Documents

It is desirable to separate mis-directed and mis-identified mail fromthe rest of the mail to ensure that checks are not improperly deposited.A problem may arise in depositing or clearing a check if the checkmis-identifies the customer or if the check is mis-directed. In otherwords, processing mis-directed or mis-identified checks can lead tosignificant accounting problems downstream in the process.

Mis-directed or mis-identified payments may be processed in one ofseveral ways. Documents that are identified by the operator andseparated prior to being scanned can be processed fairly easily.Mis-directed mail can simply be returned to the sender. Formis-identified mail, the customer may be contacted to determine how thedocuments should be processed, or the documents can simply be forwardedto the customer with a notice indicating the problem.

There are also several ways to process mis-directed or mis-identifiedpayments if the operator does not outsort the documents prior toscanning the documents. The most basic method is to retrieve thedocuments and re-assemble the transaction and process the documentssimilar to instances in which the documents are outsorted prior to beingscanned, as described above. In such an instance, the image data for thedocuments may also be deleted. More specifically, after the documentsare scanned to acquire image data, the image processor may analyze thedata to identify the payee. The identified payee is then compared to alist of acceptable customer identifiers that is maintainedelectronically, such as in a database. If the comparison does notprovide a match before the documents are to be sorted in the bins, thedocuments may be electronically tagged as mis-directed or mis-identifiedand sorted to a reject bin. Alternatively, the documents may be sortedinto the bins and if the comparison subsequently determines that thepayee does not match an acceptable customer identifier, the images maybe electronically tagged as mis-directed or mis-identified and thelocation of the documents in the bin may be identified so that theoperator can readily retrieve the documents from the bins for furtherprocessing.

An alternative method for processing mis-directed or mis-identifieddocuments uses the document image data so that copies of the documentscan be printed to make a copy of the transaction. For mis-directed mail,the copies can be sent to the person who sent the documents along witheither a request for how to process the documents or with an indicationthat the original documents have been destroyed. For mis-identifieddocuments, the transactional documents can be forwarded to the customerwith a request for how to proceed. Alternatively, rather than forwardingpaper copies of the mis-identified documents, the document images can beforwarded to the customer, with a request for instructions for how toproceed. After the documents or images are forwarded to the customer,the documents and/or images may be maintained in a pending statuswithout further processing while awaiting the customer's instructions.The documents images can be returned to the customer in any of severalways. For instance, the images can be stored on a non-volatile storagemedium such as a magnetic tape, a CD or a DVD and the storage medium canbe forwarded to the customer. Alternatively, the images may be sent viaemail to the customer or stored on a secure web server that the customercan access.

Processing Validated Payments

After the information for a payment has been validated, two stepsremain, clearance and reporting. In addition, typically, after thepayment amount for a payment instrument is determined, the paymentamount is printed onto the payment instrument. For instance, the checkamount is printed onto a check in a MICR font so that the MICR line atthe bottom of the check is extended to include the check amount.

The clearance process involves forwarding the payment instruments to afinancial institution for the clearing process. In the past, the paymentinstruments (e.g. checks, money orders and bank checks) were separatedaccording to financial institution and also possibly by customer. Inother words, first, the checks are sorted out from the other documentsin the transactions. Then the checks were sorted so that all of thechecks drawn against Bank A were grouped together and all of the checksdrawn against Bank B were grouped together. Additionally, if the mailwas sorted according to customer, the mail would be sorted so that allof the checks for Customer X drawn against Bank A were grouped together.After the payment instruments were grouped together in the relevantgroupings, the payment instruments were forwarded to a financialinstitution, such as a clearing house, to complete the clearanceprocess. Since the apparatus 10 is operable to sort the checks from theother payment documents, the checks can be sorted out and then furthersorted for clearing in the manner described above.

Rather than clearing the checks by submitting the papers documents forclearance, the images of the checks can be used to submit the checks(and other payment instruments) for clearance. Specifically, the imagedata is combined with the payment information regarding the payment toform a payment record that can be submitted electronically forclearance. For instance, the images for a check (preferably the imagesfor the front and back of the check) and the MICR line information maybe combined to create a payment record for submission to a financialinstitution for clearing the check.

The payment records may be grouped together according to the bank thatthe checks are drawn against, and then submitted for clearance inbatches. Alternatively, the payment records can be grouped together andsubmitted at certain times, such as hourly or four times a day, orotherwise. However, rather than holding payments to group them together,it may be desirable to submit each payment record individually after thepayment record is completed and validated. In this way, the payments areprocessed serially so that the documents are scanned, analyzed,validated and submitted for clearance individually, without beingbatched with other payments for clearance. In other words, in a batch of20,000 mail pieces that contain 20,000 checks, there will be upwards of20,000 different steps of submitting payment records for clearance(assuming that each check is properly executed and properly identifies acustomer of the lockbox as a payee). Therefore, for a batch of mail, thenumber of separate submissions of payment records to a financialinstitution will be substantially similar to the number checks in thebatch of mail. Eliminating the step of grouping the payments togetherfor clearance, reduces the time frame for depositing payments and havingthe payments credited to the payees' bank accounts.

In this way, although not the only mode of operation, one mode ofprocessing documents using the apparatus 10 includes scanning thedocuments extracted from an envelope to acquire image data for eachdocument in the envelope. The scanned documents and/or the image dataare analyzed to identify a payment instrument, such as a check fromamong the documents. Information regarding the payment instrument isextracted, such as the payment amount and the payee. A payment recordthat includes the image data for the payment instrument is created foreach payment instrument. The payment record containing only the paymentinformation for the single payment instrument is then submittedseparately for clearance to a financial institution that is not the sameas the lockbox processor. Although in certain instances some of thepayment records may be batched together for clearing together,preferably at least a majority of the payment records are submittedindividually. In addition, some of the checks in a batch of mail may bemis-directed or mis-identified or cannot be processed for some otherreason. Although a batch may include some payment records that arebatched for submission for clearance, and some of the checks in a batchof mail may not be submitted for clearance, preferably the number ofsubmissions of payment records for clearance for a batch of mail issubstantially similar to the number of checks in the mail.

In addition to submitting the payment instruments for clearance, theapparatus is operable to track the deposits and provide records to thecustomers to inform the customers of the payments that were received andthe deposits that were made. As discussed previously, the apparatus isoperable to process a batch or mail containing mail for a variety ofcustomers without pre-sorting the mail according to customer. However,as the apparatus processes the documents, the apparatus tracks thepayment information for each transaction so that the customer for eachpayment transaction is identified and stored. The apparatus can thensort the information regarding the payment transactions by customer. Inthis way, a summary of the payments received for each customer can becreated and provided in a report form. In addition, if a customer sodesires, a log with all of the information regarding each payment can becreated so that a customer can see all of the details for all of thepayments received by the lockbox for the customer during a certain timeperiod (e.g. daily, weekly or monthly). The report may include the dateand time that a payment was scanned and analyzed, the amount of thepayment, the payor, and the date and time that the payment wasdeposited. The report also may include information extracted from thedocuments accompanying the payment, such as invoice number or otherpayment identifying information. The report may be combined togetherwith the image data for the documents in the payments referenced in thereport, and stored on a non-volatile storage medium.

In addition, it may be desirable to consolidate the information and theimage data for all of the payments received for a particular customerduring a particular time at several different processing facilities.More specifically, some lockbox processors may have various regionalfacilities so that the processing facilities are closer to various areasso that the mail does not have to travel as far to get to the lockboxfacility. For instance, a lockbox processor may have a facility on thewest coast, a separate facility on the east coast, and a separatefacility in the mid-west. In this way, a payment would not be delayedwhile it is transported through the mail system from a payor on the westcoast to a processing facility on the east coast. Instead, the payorsare given the address for the closest facility. In this way, a lockboxcustomer may receive payments each day at each of the three processingfacilities. To consolidate the payment information for the customers,the payment information for each customer may be combined for all of theprocessing facilities so that the reports include payment informationfor the payment received during a particular time frame at all of theprocessing facilities. In addition, preferably information regarding theimage data is centralized so that the image data can be readilyretrieved by the customer regardless of which regional facilityprocesses a payment.

ID Assist Document Tracking System

As an operator processes documents, the operator may noticecharacteristics of various documents that would affect the processing ofthe document or transaction. Since the system is configured to process awide variety of documents, there may be numerous characteristics thatcould affect how a document is processed. Therefore, the system providesan interface that allows the operator to input information aboutnumerous characteristics of a document.

For instance, preferably, the system display is a touch screen thatincludes a menu option for identifying a document characteristic. Bypressing on the menu option, a separate menu appears on the displaylisting various document characteristics. The operator can select theappropriate document characteristic from the display. Depending on thecharacteristic selected, a further submenu may be displayed on thescreen to further identify information about the document.

After inputting the appropriate document information, the operator dropsthe document onto the conveyor. In order to ensure that the document isproperly identified with the selected characteristic, the timing of thedocument identification is done in a particular order. First, theoperator waits until all of the preceding documents have been processed.Specifically, before identifying a characteristic for a document, theoperator waits until all of the previously dropped documents areconveyed to the feeder. Further still, the operator may wait until allof the documents are fed into the scanner from the feeder beforecompleting the steps to identify the document characteristic.

After ensuring that the preceding documents are conveyed from thetransport, the operator completes the selection of the appropriatedocument characteristic using the touch screen. The operator then dropsthe document onto the transport and the document is conveyed to thefeeder. The document is electronically tagged as having thecharacteristic identified by the operator, and is then processedaccordingly.

Utilizing this method, the system can be used to identify a variety ofdocument characteristics, and process the documents accordingly.Specifically, the method can be utilized to identify any characteristicthat can be defined with a yes or no response. For example, acharacteristic may be “is the document printed in a landscapeorientation?” Accordingly, the system can be used to identify featuressuch the following:

-   -   Color—The operator can identify documents that should be scanned        in color. In some jobs, the default scan may be black and white        or gray scale. If the operator identifies a document for color        scanning, the document is scanned in color rather than black and        white or gray scale.    -   Color dropout—The operator can identify documents that should be        scanned in color, but with a particular color dropped out from        the scan. As part of the set-up for a job, the operator selects        the color that should be dropped from the scan.    -   Transaction boundary—The operator can identify a document as a        transaction boundary. For instance, an operator can identify a        document as being the last document in a transaction. Subsequent        documents will be identified in a separate transaction.    -   Automatic rotation—The operator can identify documents that need        to be rotated, such as documents that are in landscape        orientation.    -   Page-type determination—The operator can identify the document        type, particularly if two different types of documents have        similar physical attributes. For instance, a job may have two        document types that are virtually identical in size, such as a        check and a money order. The page-type determination can be used        to distinguish a money order from a check, so that the document        images can be scanned appropriately and the documents can be        sorted separately, if desired.

This list of document features illustrates the different characteristicsthat can be identified by the operator. In addition, numerous othercharacteristics can be identified for different type of documents anddifferent applications. Accordingly, the above list is not an exhaustivelist of all of the features that can be used to tag documents fordifferent processing.

Although the foregoing methodology illustrates the flexibility ofoperation of the system, it may be desirable to improve the flow rate ofdocuments through the system. In particular, the system can beconfigured to manually identify and electronically tag documents withcertain characteristics more rapidly than described above.

Turning now to FIGS. 19-20, a document tracking feature referred to asID assist is illustrated. The document tracking feature may include adrop area that is designated to receive documents having a particularcharacteristic. If a document is dropped in the identification droparea, the document is electronically tagged as having the pre-determinedcharacteristic and is processed accordingly.

More specifically, the system 10 includes an ID drop area 104 adjacentthe main drop area 101. In the present instance, the ID drop area 104 islocated to the right of the main drop area 101. An ID sensor 350positioned in the ID drop area 104 detects the presence of a documentdropped onto the conveyor 100 in the drop area. The ID sensor 350 may beany of a variety of types of sensors. In the present instance, the IDsensor 350 is an infrared sensor positioned adjacent the conveyor 100.The ID sensor 350 is located so that the sensor is blocked when adocument is dropped in the ID drop area 104. For instance, the ID sensor350 may be positioned about 2″ from the right hand edge of the conveyor100.

In addition to the ID sensor 350, the system includes an intermediatesensor 355 positioned adjacent the main drop area 101, between the IDsensor 350 and the entry feeder 110. Further, the ID assist featureutilizes a sensor adjacent the entry feeder 110 or the imager 150. Inthe present instance, one of the feeder exit sensors 135 is utilized.The intermediate sensor 355 is operable to detect the leading andtrailing edges of a document as the document is conveyed from the IDdrop area 104 to the image entry feeder 110. Since the speed at whichthe conveyor conveys the document is known, the length of the documentcan be determined based on the elapsed time between when the leading andtrailing edges of the document pass the intermediate sensor 355. Theintermediate sensor 355 is positioned downstream from the ID sensor 350and is spaced from the ID sensor a distance greater than the length ofthe longest document that the system is configured to process in anormal job. In the present instance, the intermediate sensor ispositioned 14″ to the left of the ID sensor, which in the presentconfiguration positions the intermediate sensor so that it is right infront of the area where the operator is normally seated. In addition, asshown in FIG. 19, the three sensors 350, 355 and 135 are positionedadjacent the guide rail, so that the sensors are operable to detectdocuments that are on the conveyor against the guide rail.

The system 10 may also include an indicator light 270 in the form of anLED. The indicator light is used to indicate whether or not the ID droparea is ready (i.e. a document can be dropped in the drop area 104). Inthe present instance, the indicator light 270 is controlled so that theindicator light is on when the ID drop zone is ready and it is off whenthe ID drop zone is busy. However, the indicator light can be controlledso that it is on only when the system is busy (i.e. if the indicatorlight is on a document should not be dropped in the ID drop zone).

Based on the signal received from the sensors 350, 355 a time window iscreated for the document. A document arriving at the feeder exit sensor135 during the time window is presumed to be the document that wasdropped in the ID drop area 104. Documents arriving at the feeder exitsensor 135 before or after the time window are presumed to be documentsother than the document that was dropped in the ID drop area. Therefore,the operator need not wait for the conveyor to clear before dropping adocument in the ID drop zone 104 to identify the documentcharacteristic. In addition, the operator need not wait for the documentbeing identified to arrive at the imager 150 before dropping asubsequent document.

Referring to FIG. 20, the tracking of the documents will be described ingreater detail. In step 410, a document is placed on the conveyor in theID drop area 104 so that the document blocks the ID sensor 350. Inresponse, the blocked sensor 350 sends a signal to the systemcontroller, which in turn sends a signal to turn off the LED indicatorlight 270 at step 415. When the indicator light is off, the operatorshould not drop a subsequent document into the ID drop area. Theconveyor 100 conveys the dropped document toward intermediate sensor355. After the document is dropped, the system monitors the ID sensor350 to detect the trailing edge of the dropped document, as shown instep 420. If the trailing edge is not detected within a pre-determinedtime frame, the system declares a jam, as shown in step 424.

Referring again to step 420, when the trailing edge of the documentpasses the ID sensor 350, a signal is sent to the system controllerindicating that the trailing edge of the document has passed the IDsensor. In response to the trailing edge of the document passing the IDsensor 350, the indicator light 270 is turned on (426) indicating thatthe operator can drop a subsequent document in the ID drop area. Inaddition, a time is set to open a time window and the system is set tolook for a document at the intermediate sensor 355, as shown in step430. During the time window, the system is expecting a document toarrive at the intermediate sensor 355. If a document arrives at theintermediate sensor 355 before the beginning of the time window or afterthe close of the time window, the system assumes that the document atthe intermediate sensor is not the document that was dropped in the IDdrop area.

The time window corresponds to the amount of time that the documentshould take to be conveyed to the intermediate sensor 355. For example,if the conveyor operates at 14″ per second, and the intermediate sensoris 14″ to the left of the ID sensor 350, the trailing edge of thedocument should pass the intermediate sensor 355 one second after thetrailing edge passes the ID sensor 350. Therefore, the window shouldcorrelate to one second. If the conveyor operates at a slower rate, thewindow should be longer, and if the conveyor operates at a faster rate,the window could be shorter.

Although the time window corresponds to the amount of time that trailingedge of the document should take to get from the ID sensor to theintermediate sensor, typically the window is set to a longer time thanthe expected time. The longer time provides for possible delays that canoccur as the document travels from the ID sensor to the intermediatesensor. For instance, there can be slippage between the document and theconveyor, especially when the document is first dropped onto theconveyor. Similarly, if the operator presses against the documents ordoes not completely release the document when the document is placed onthe conveyor, the document can be delayed. Accordingly, the time windowis set so that the time that the system expects the trailing edge of thedocument to pass the intermediate sensor 355 may be longer than the timethat it could take for a document to travel from the ID sensor to theintermediate sensor under ideal circumstances.

In this way, the operator typically does not need to wait for otherdocuments to be dropped before dropping a document in the ID drop area.Similarly, after a document is dropped in the ID drop area, the operatorneed not wait for the dropped document to be processed before processingfurther documents. The operator simply needs to ensure that furtherdocuments are not dropped onto the conveyor within an area and timecorresponding to the time window for a document dropped in the ID droparea. For example, a mis-identification can occur if the operator dropsa first document in the ID drop area, then picks up the document andquickly drops a second document so that the trailing edge of the seconddocument passes the intermediate sensor 355 within the time window ofthe first document. By using the time window to track the documentdropped in the ID drop zone, the system allows the rapid identificationof select documents without significant interruption in the flow ofdocuments.

In step 440 the intermediate sensor 355 senses the leading edge of thedocument. In response to a signal from the sensor indicative of theleading edge, the system controller stores the time that the leadingedge arrived at the intermediate sensor (step 442). Additionally, thesystem opens the time window set in step 430, as shown in step 444.Subsequently, at step 450, if the intermediate sensor 355 senses thetrailing edge of the document, the system controller stores the timethat the sensor sensed t;ie trailing edge (step 452). At step 455 thesystem evaluates whether the system was looking for a document to beidentified. Specifically, as discussed above, when the ID sensor 455 isblocked, the system is set to look for a document to be identified atstep 430. If the system is set to look for a document to identify, thenthe analysis proceeds to step 460. If the system is not set to look fora document to identify, then the document at the sensor is not tagged asa document to be identified.

At step 460, if the document is set to look for a document to identify,then the system determines whether the document arrived within the timewindow set in step 430. Specifically, at step 430 the time window isset, and at step 442 the time window is opened. If the time recorded atstep 452 comes within the time window, then the system determines thatthe document detected is the document that was dropped in the ID droparea 104. The system then starts a timer with a time corresponding towhen the document is expected to arrive at the feeder exit sensor 135(step 464).

At step 462 the length of the document is determined based on the timethat the leading edge is detected (step 442), the time that the trailingedge is detected (step 452), and the speed at which the conveyortransports the documents, which is known. Based on the time that theleading edge was detected (step 442), the speed of the conveyor (known)and the distance from the intermediate sensor 355 to the feeder exitsensor 135 (a known system characteristic), the system determines whenthe leading edge of the document should arrive at the feeder exit sensor135, and starts a timer at step 464.

At step 470, the system detects the leading edge of a document. Sincethe operator may not have waited to process subsequent documents afterdropping a document in the ID drop area, the document at the feeder exitsensor may not be the document dropped in the ID drop area. Accordingly,when the feeder exit sensor 135 detects the leading edge of a document,the system records the time at step 472. At step 480, the systemanalyzes the data to determine if the time recorded at step 472correlates to the time set at step 464. If it does, the document istagged as the document dropped in the ID drop area at step 480. If thetime recorded at step 472 does not correlate to the time set at step464, then the document is processed as a default document rather than asa document that was to be tagged as an identified document.

As described above, the system tracks a document as it is conveyed fromthe ID drop area 104 to the imager 150. Additionally, unless a documentis detected by each of the three sensors 350, 355, 135 the system simplytreats the document as a default document and processes the documentaccording to default settings. Further, even if a document is detectedby all three sensors, the document is not tagged as an identifieddocument unless the document passes the intermediate sensor 355 and thefeeder exit sensor 135 during appropriate time frames. In this way, thesystem is able to monitor a document that is to be tagged as anidentified document, while continuing to process documents that are notto be identified.

Further still, if a document is erroneously dropped in the ID drop area104, the operator can simply pick up the document at any point along theconveyor before the document reaches the entry feeder 110. Morespecifically, the system tracks documents at the sensors 355,135 todetermine whether the documents are documents that were dropped in theID drop zone by monitoring whether the documents arrived at therespective sensor during a time frame corresponding to when the systemexpects a document to arrive at the respective sensor from the ID sensor350. If a documents arrives at one of the sensors at a time that doesnot correspond to a relevant time frame for a document dropped in the IDdrop zone, the system simply treats the document as a default documentand not one to be tagged as being identified. Therefore, if a documentis erroneously dropped in the ID drop zone 104, the operator can simplypick the document back up and re-drop the document in the normal dropzone 101 after a short delay to ensure that the document does not passthe intermediate sensor and the feeder exit sensor 135 during theappropriate time windows.

System Applications

As discussed above, the document ID method has numerous applications fordifferent document characteristics. Typically, prior to processing abatch of documents a document ID characteristic is selected for the jobas a job parameter. Documents identified during the job will be taggedas having the characteristic and processed accordingly. There may beseveral characteristics that need to be identified while processing ajob, therefore, the operator may select the characteristic that isexpected to occur most frequently.

After selecting the ID characteristic, the operator processes documentsby dropping the documents on the conveyor 100. Documents that are to betagged as having the selected characteristic are dropped in the droparea 104. As discussed above, documents dropped in the drop area aretracked by the system and tagged accordingly.

One example of the system is using the ID assist to identify transactionboundaries. To do so, the job is set up so that the ID characteristic isset to either identify the beginning or end of a transaction. In thefollowing example, the characteristic is set to identify the beginningof the transaction. Accordingly, as an operator is processing documents,the operator can manually identify the documents in a transactionbecause the operator removes the documents from an envelope (asdescribed previously) or the documents may be stacked in such a way thatthe operator is able to determine the boundaries for a transaction.

To process a transaction, the operator drops the first document in atransaction onto the ID drop area 104. The operator then waits until thefirst transaction document passes the intermediate sensor 355 to ensurethat subsequent documents do not get associated with a differenttransaction. The operator then drops the remaining document in the firsttransaction onto the main drop area 101. After dropping the finaldocument in the first transaction, the operator drops the first documentof the second transaction onto the ID drop area 104 to identify thestart of the second transaction. The operator waits until the firstdocument of the second transaction passes the intermediate sensor beforedropping the rest of the documents in the second transaction onto themain drop area 101. In other words, after the first document of thesecond transaction is dropped onto the ID drop area 104, the operatordrops the subsequent document(s) in the second transaction to ensurethat the subsequent document(s) trail the first document in the secondtransaction.

Assuming that the first two documents dropped onto the ID drop areaprogress through the system so that the documents reach the intermediatesensor 355 and the feeder exit sensor 135 during the appropriate timewindows, the two documents will be identified as the first documents inthe first two transactions. The system 10 will process the documents sothat the first ID assist identified document and all of the documentsbetween the first and second ID assist identified document areassociated together as the first transaction in the job. Additionally,the second ID assist identified document and all of the documentsbetween the second ID assist identified document and the next ID assistidentified document are associated together as the second transaction inthe job. In this way, the documents in a job can be readily associatedand separated into the proper transactions.

Although the system has been described as operating to automatically tagthe document as having a pre-determined characteristic, the system maybe used in certain instances to identify further information throughoperator prompt. For instance, dropping a document in the ID drop area104 may operate to automatically prompt the user for furtherinformation. For example, in response to sensing a document in the IDdrop area 104, the system may automatically open a particular menuhaving a variety of selections, such as page-types. The user thenselects the appropriate choice from the selection and the system thenprocesses the document as discussed above. If the document arrives atthe intermediate sensor 355 and the feeder exit sensor 135 within theappropriate time frames, the document is tagged with the informationselected by the user and processes the document accordingly.

Additionally, the ID sensor can be used as a more generalized indicatorthat a characteristic is to be selected for the document. Therefore,instead of having to wait for the transport to be cleared and thenindicate that a document characteristic is to be identified for thedocument, and then selecting the characteristic, the ID sensor may causea general menu to automatically open up allowing the operator to selectthe characteristic and have it applied to the document. In this way, thesystem can operate in a semi-automatic mode to speed document processingwhile allowing the operator to input various selection criteria for thedocuments.

As discussed above, the ID drop feature allows the system toautomatically tag a document with a particular characteristic. Inaddition, the system can use the ID information in combination withother information determined during processing to identify how thedocument is to be processed. For instance, during processing, the systemcan be used to determine various information about a document, such aslength, width and presence of an OCR or MICR line. This information canbe combined with the ID assist to determine how the document should beprocessed. By way of example, the system may determine that a documentis a check or money order in response to the measured length and widthof a document and the presence of a MICR line in a pre-determined area.To distinguish between a check and a similarly sized money order, thesystem may require that the money order by identified by the ID assistas described above. Therefore, to identify a document as a money order,the document must have the appropriate characteristics (length, width,MICR line) along with having been identified by the ID assist. If thedocument was not identified by the ID assist, the system will identifythe document as a check based on the length width and MICR lineinformation.

By way of another example, the ID assist feature can improve theprocessing of color documents. When processing documents, it may bedesirable to save certain portions or snippets of document image data incolor rather than (or in addition to) converting the entire image datafile to gray scale or black and white images. The system may determinethat a document should have snippets saved in color based on thedocument being dropped in the drop area 104. However, the system 10 maystill need to identify the page-type to determine the locations for thesnippets to be saved in color. For instance, the system may need todetermine whether the document is an 8½×11 document in portrait orlandscape orientation, or whether the document is a check or a paymentstub.

The system 10 may determine the page-type computationally by evaluatingvarious features detected by the system (such as height, width, MICRline, OCR line, font orientation or other characteristics).Alternatively, the ID assist features may be configured to identify thepage-type. In other words, if a document is dropped in the drop area,the document is tagged as a document having a particular page-type thatshould have certain portions of image data scanned and saved in color.In such a set-up, the ID assist may force the system to identify thedocument as a particular document type regardless of other features ofthe document.

Alternatively, when used in combination with an operator prompt, thesystem may identify the page-type by operator input. Specifically, thejob may be set-up so that the ID characteristic is a color scan, and sothat dropping a document in the ID drop area prompts the operator toinput the page-type, such as by selecting from a menu list on thetouchscreen display. In this way a document may be tagged to be scannedin color and the page-type is also identified so that the system canautomatically scan and save the appropriate portions of the document incolor based on the identified document type.

The ID assist feature can be also used to override defaultdeterminations that the systems makes based on certain characteristics.For instance, for color scanning, the system may be set up so that priorto scanning a document in color, the operator drops the document in theID drop area 104 to identify the document as one that is to be scannedin color. When processing the document, the system automaticallydetermines the page-type for the document so that the proper areas arescanned in color. As discussed previously, the system may use variousdocument characteristics to determine the page-type, including thelength and width of the document, the presence of an OCR line, a MICRline in a pre-determined area, and other features. If there are numerouspage-types in a job, the page-type determination can be computationallyintense.

Although the job can be set-up to prompt the operator to input thepage-type when a page is dropped in the ID drop area 104, the job can beset-up to process the documents more efficiently. Specifically, if onlycertain page-types that are to be scanned in color are expected for ajob, the job can be set-up so that only such page-types are consideredwhen performing an automated page-type determination. For example, a jobmay have 20 different page-types, but only five page-types to be scannedin color are anticipated for the job. When setting up the job, the IDassist is set so that the five anticipated page-types are set to requireID assist identification, while the remaining 15 page-types are set torequire that the document not be identified using ID assist. In thisway, if a document is identified by ID assist, the system will scan thedocument (or portions) in color. In addition, the system will determinethe page-type for the document automatically. Since the document wasidentified using ID assist, the system will evaluate the page andcompare it against only the 5 page-types set-up for the job, rather thancomparing the document characteristics against all of the possiblepage-types for a job.

If the operator encounters a document in a job that is to be scanned incolor, but the document has a page-type that is different from the 5page-types set-up for the job, the operator can still process thedocument so that it is scanned in color. However, the operator shouldprocess the document without the ID assist. In other words, the operatorwill manually identify the document as one to be scanned in color, suchas by making one or more selections on the touchscreen display. Further,since the 5 page-types were set to require ID assist identification, thesystem need only compare the document against the remaining 15page-types when making an automated page-type determination. By limitingthe page-types to be used in the automated page-type determination, theID assist may improve the efficiency of the system, even when the IDassist feature is not used for a particular document.

1. A method for processing document, comprising the steps of: dropping afirst document onto a first area; conveying the first document from thefirst area to a scanner; scanning the first document to obtain imagedata for the first document; dropping a second document onto a secondarea to identify the second document with a characteristic; conveyingthe second document from the second area to the scanner; and scanningthe second document to obtain image data for the second document.
 2. Themethod of claim 1 comprising the step of tracking the document along adocument path between the second area and the scanner to verify that thedocument arriving at the scanner corresponds to the document dropped inthe second area.
 3. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of trackingcomprises tracking the progress of the second document along thedocument path against one or more windows of time.
 4. The method ofclaim 3 comprising the step of sensing an edge of the second document ata plurality of points along the path.
 5. The method of claim 4comprising the step of detecting the time at which an edge of the seconddocument was sensed at each of the plurality of points.
 6. The method ofclaim 5 comprising the step of comparing the detected times against aplurality of windows of time.
 7. The method of claim 6 comprising thestep of electronically tagging the second document with thecharacteristic in response to the step of comparing the detected times,and processing the document in response to the identifiedcharacteristic.
 8. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of trackingcomprises analyzing the time that a portion of the second documentreaches a pre-defined location to determine whether the portion of thesecond document reaches the pre-defined location within a specifiedwindow of time.
 9. The method of claim 1 comprising the step ofselecting the characteristic for a batch of documents from among aplurality of potential characteristics.
 10. An apparatus for processingdocuments, comprising: a conveyor for conveying documents, comprising: afirst portion for receiving documents having a first characteristic; anda second portion for receiving documents not having the firstcharacteristic; a scanner for receiving documents from the conveyor,wherein the scanner is operable to scan the documents to obtain imagedata for the documents; a first sensor operable to detect the presenceof documents received on the first portion of the conveyor; a secondsensor spaced apart from the first sensor, operable to detect thepresence of documents as the conveyor conveys the documents from thefirst portion of the conveyor to the scanner; a processor operable toanalyze the progress of the documents in response to the time that asignal is received from the first sensor regarding a first document andthe time that a signal is received from the second sensor regarding thefirst document; wherein in response to the analysis of the progress ofthe first document, the first document is selectively electronicallytagged indicating the presence of a characteristic.
 11. The apparatus ofclaim 10 wherein the processor is operable to analyze the time that aportion of the first document reaches the second sensor to determinewhether the portion of the first document arrived at the second sensorwithin a pre-defined time window.
 12. The apparatus of claim 11 whereinthe pre-defined time window is defined based on the time that the firstsensor senses a portion of the first document.
 13. The apparatus ofclaim 12 wherein the portion of the first document is the trailing edgeof the document.
 14. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the processor isoperable to determine that the first document is not to beelectronically tagged indicating the presence of a characteristic inresponse to the portion of the first document reaching the second sensorat a time outside the time window.
 15. The apparatus of claim 10comprising a third sensor positioned adjacent the scanner, operable todetect the presence of documents as the documents are conveyed from thefirst portion of the conveyor to the scanner.
 16. The apparatus of claim15 wherein the processor is operable to determine whether documents areto be electronically tagged in response to the time that signals arereceived from the first, second and third sensors.
 17. An apparatus forprocessing documents, comprising: a conveyor operable to receive andconvey documents; a first sensor positioned along the conveyor; a secondsensor positioned along the conveyor; a scanner positioned adjacent theconveyor, wherein the scanner is operable to receive documents conveyedby the conveyor and to scan the documents to obtain image data for thedocument; a processor operable to control the processing of thedocuments in response to signals received from the first and secondsensors; wherein the second sensor is spaced apart from the first sensorand is positioned between the first sensor and the scanner; wherein theprocessor is operable to determine the time that signals are receivedfrom the first and second sensors, and wherein the processor is operableto selectively electronically tag documents in response to a signal fromthe first sensor indicating that the first sensor sensed the presence ofthe document and a signal from the second sensor indicating that thesecond sensor sensed a portion of the document within a select period oftime.
 18. The apparatus of claim 17 wherein the processor is configuredto determine that a document is not to be electronically tagged if thefirst sensor senses the presence of the document but the subsequentsignal from the second sensor occurs before or after the selected periodof time.
 19. The apparatus of claim 17 comprising a third sensorpositioned between the second sensor and the scanner, wherein theprocessor is operable to determine whether a document is to beelectronically tagged in response to the time that a signal is receivedfrom the third sensor indicating that the third sensor senses a portionof the document.
 20. The apparatus of claim 17 wherein the select periodof time for a document is determined in response to when the firstsensor detects the trailing edge of the document.
 21. A method forprocessing documents, comprising the steps of: dropping a document in afirst area; sensing the presence of the document in the first area witha first sensor; recording the time the first sensor detects an edge ofthe document; conveying the document away from the first area and past asecond sensor; recording the time the second sensor detects an edge ofthe document; scanning the document to determine a characteristic of thedocument; selectively electronically tagging the document as having apre-determined characteristic in response to signals from the firstsensor indicating the presence of the document in the first area and thetime of recording the second sensor detecting the edge of the document;and processing the document in response to whether the document iselectronically tagged.
 22. The method of claim 21 wherein the step ofrecording the time the first sensor detects an edge comprises recordingthe time the first sensor detects a trailing edge of the document. 23.The method of claim 22 wherein the step of recording the time the secondsensor detects an edge comprises recording the time the second sensordetects the trailing edge of the document.
 24. The method of claim 21wherein the step of scanning the document comprises scanning thedocument to obtain image data representative of the image of thedocument.
 25. The method of claim 21 wherein the method comprisesprocessing the document without electronically tagging the document ifthe first sensor senses the presence of the document but the secondsensor senses the edge of the document at a time that is outside apre-determined window of time.
 26. The method of claim 25 wherein thewindow of time is determined in response to the time that the firstsensor detects the edge of the document.
 27. The method of claim 21comprising the steps of: conveying the document away from the secondsensor and past a third sensor; and recording the time the third sensordetects an edge of the document; wherein the step of electronicallytagging the document comprises electronically tagging the document inresponse to the time of recording the third sensor detecting the edge ofthe document.
 28. The method of claim 27 wherein the step of recordingthe time the third sensor detects an edge of the document comprisesrecording the time the third sensor detects a leading edge of thedocument.